Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
Seeing the chimps check out the GoPro camera still hasn’t gotten old… especially when it’s the boss who’s checking it out.
Jamie hasn’t inspected the GoPro like many of the other chimps have. It’s unusual because normally, as soon as we add something new to her environment, Jamie immediately does all that she can to try to tear it apart. But the other day, she decided it was time to get down to the bottom of this “strange object we keep putting in the enclosure”.
Today we were pleased to have Kittitas County Fire District #1 from Thorp stop by the sanctuary to visit with the chimps. The crew, along with Kittitas County Fire District #7 (whom we hope to also have out someday soon), were the first to respond on the sanctuary property the day of the Taylor Bridge Fire. We were super happy to have them out again, this time on a much calmer note. The chimps were pretty enriched by their fancy Nomex wildland garb!
Jamie was especially interested in all the boots
And Jody came over and gave them all a very friendly greeting. I think she was charmed by all the men with facial hair. 😉
We’ll never be able to express to this crew how much they mean to us and how much we appreciate the hard work these and all of the firefighters did to help contain the Taylor Bridge Fire. You guys will always be heroes in our book!
Supporter Dana Alan Troyer thoughtfully sent the chimps the Disneynature movie “Chimpanzee”. Burrito and Foxie have always been fascinated by movies and they were especially excited about this one! You may notice at one point it looks as though Burrito is “dancing” to the beat of the music, but in reality I suspect he was just generally excited about seeing the chimps on TV. He loves TV but is particularly interested in movies with free-living chimpanzees. His face while watching the movie was just priceless! Thanks, Dana!
Annie made a cozy nest this morning in the greenhouse. She was so content there, she had no interest in going out on the hill while other chimps were headed out. Instead, she watched them explore from the comfort of her bed.
But after she abandoned her nest, Jamie decided it was the perfect place to take a nap.
The chimps have been super mellow today- lots of nesting, grooming, and general quiet time. Elizabeth snapped a couple of really great pictures of Foxie and Negra resting on the catwalk in the playroom this morning. I love seeing the chimps so relaxed and peaceful.
Foxie:
Negra often lets her lips droop to one side when she’s relaxing. It’s almost like she’s so relaxed, she just lets gravity do the work.
“Nightbags” are paper sacks of a variety of nuts, dried fruit and seeds that we give the chimps each night after their dinner. All of the chimps really enjoy nightbags, especially Negra- whom I’m pretty sure lives for that moment every day. It is her all time favorite thing in the world and there is nothing quite as special as her facial expression as we pass it to her each night. Her eyes get wide and she blinks with excitement- almost disbelief- that the moment has arrived where she can have her precious nightbag. It is the best feeling in the world to be the one giving her that much joy.
But we are really low on nightbag mix! Like I mentioned, the mix usually consists of nuts (peanuts, pecans, and almonds are among their favorites), sunflower and pumpkin seeds, and any type of dried fruit, though we only give the chimps unsalted and sugar free foods, so if you are shopping around- be sure to look at the ingredients! For nuts, raw and in shell is best.
Nuts.com has pre-selected care packages hand picked for the chimps, where for $25 you can get a variety of in-shell, unsalted mixed nuts, however, we need seeds and dried fruit too, and some variety would be great!
***NOTE: Any sugar-free, natural dried fruit is fine except for mangoes! Annie is allergic.***
Here’s Negra enjoying tonight’s nightbag:
Burrito was a bit nervous going out on Young’s Hill today- most likely because before Friday, due to the Taylor Bridge Fire, the chimps hadn’t been out there in nearly three weeks. As soon as he got out there, he stood bipedally and his hair was pilo erect (standing on end), both signs that he was a bit worked up or aroused. But Foxie and Missy both reassured him that everything was safe.
Burrito trying to steal a hug from Foxie, who was walking by right after the door to the hill was opened:
who then hugged him back as a way to calm him down. If you look closely at the photo, you can see that Burrito is fear grimacing (aka- showing all of his teeth. This facial expression looks much like a human smile, but is usually a sign of fear or intense excitement).
Still a bit nervous, he approached Missy with a bent wrist. A bent wrist is a submissive gesture and often an effective way to gain reassurance from a more dominant individual. He has a large fear grimace in this photo.
Later, seeing that Burrito was still nervous, Missy approached him, breathy panted and gave him an open mouth kiss, again letting him know that all was okay.
He eventually settled down and got busy doing what he does (and loves) best- foraging for chow.
