Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
The Cle Elum Seven are, on the whole, some of the most playful chimps I’ve known. I think its mostly due to Missy, who is always up for wrestling, chasing, or playing tug-o-war:
I don’t know if we’ve mentioned this before, but she really loves to jump off of things. Just today, she used a boat bumper as a springboard in an attempt to get Annie to play, and later she jumped off the deck to chase after Jamie (and get her blanket back):
Step 1: Find someone with a perfectly good scarf.
Step 2: Chase them down.
Step 3: Grab hold of the scarf and don’t let go.
Step 4: If you aren’t able to ruin it by yourself, enlist a friend.
Step 5: If necessary, tear at it with your fingers.
Step 6: Repeat steps 3 and 4.
Your scarf should now look like this:
Recently, the chimps received a visit from Joyce Tischler, founder and general counsel of the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), and Bruce Wagman, ALDF’s chief outside litigation counsel (and also a CSNW board member). Bruce and Joyce have written wonderful accounts of their first trip to meet the Cle Elum Seven, which you can read on their blog. You’ll also find never before seen videos of Jody and Foxie! We encourage everyone to check it out and support the great work that ALDF does every day to protect animals.
Foxie and Jamie have been so playful together lately. Not that we don’t love playing with Foxie, but it’s even better to see her playing with other chimps.
Jamie likes using tools so much she invents reasons to use them. Here Jamie is trying to groom Diana’s broken fingernail with a plastic wrench:
I posted a photo of Jody with her bucket of soapy water a few weeks ago, but I can’t resist posting the rest of the series:
The chimps have been in very good moods lately, despite this late winter snow storm. Sometimes when they’re too cooperative, and they’re not spitting and banging at us at all, I get suspicious…
This morning, when Elizabeth and I went in to say good morning to the chimps, Foxie passed two small trolls to me and proceeded to do a dozen pirouettes and at least as many backflips. Missy and Jody both wore makeshift garter belts for a good part of the day (I think one of them was a scrunchy). I managed to catch a few more of the day’s activities on camera:
