Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Katelyn

In memory of Barbara

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This day of sanctuary for the chimpanzees was sponsored by Suzanne Van Ness in memory of her sister, Barbara Beck, who was born on this date 65 years ago.

Suzanne, thank you for your gracious heart in choosing to honor Barbara and her memory in such a compassionate way. You and Barbara have made a difference in the lives of the chimpanzees and we’re so appreciative to you both for that. May comfort and wonderful memories weave themselves around you today.

Missy and Annie:

Annie holding Missy’s foot:

Happy Birthday, Rachel!

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Long-time friend of the chimpanzees, Rachel Ruggeri, sponsored this beautiful summer day of sanctuary in an inspiring celebration of her birthday:

“Today marks my 51st birthday and there is no way I’d rather celebrate than to honor my friends (chimpanzee and bovine) at the sanctuary. I take great comfort knowing that all of the animals at the sanctuary are living their best lives. That gives me hope and right now…that is what we all need.”

Happy Birthday, Rachel! Thank you so much for helping us fill all our days with the celebration of hope to be found in each day. We’re so grateful to you for all the good you help surround the chimps and bovines with. All of us here hope your day of celebration is a heart-filled one of joy and wonder.

Missy and Annie:

Burrito and Dora:

Honey B and Mave:

Willy B:

Honey, Betsy and Nutmeg (Meredith being her independent bovine self out of frame):

Meredith:

Meredith

Negra:

Foxie, Jody and Jamie:

Jamie’s Book Club

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It’s a cooker today and the chimpanzees on both sides of the building are enjoying their new fans immensely! Many of them have been camped out in front of the fans, building nests, completely relaxed as they doze off with their hair blowing in the breeze. A quintessential summer day. And it wouldn’t be summer without a summer reading list! I found Jamie blissfully relaxed in front of the cool air, clutching several of her choices.

Jamie’s summer reading recommendations:

1) Great Apes

2) The Art of the Boot

3) Jamie’s Salmon Sisters Boot Book (goes without saying – she still hoots daily every time we give it to her)

4) And really, anything with skulls, which Jamie is endlessly fascinated by:

Hope you all are enjoying some good summer reading as well (even if it doesn’t involve skulls 😉 )!

In Kevin’s memory

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Today was sponsored by the chimpanzees’ dear friend and neighbor, Shelley Winfrey, in honor of her brother, Kevin Clark, who passed away. Shelly graciously sponsors this day each year in Kevin’s memory and in her knowing that he would have loved the chimpanzees as well.

Shelley, thank you, from our hearts, for always including the chimpanzees in your life and family. May this beautiful summer day bring comforting and joyful memories to your heart. We’ll be thinking of Kevin and sending you and your family all the good thoughts.

I’m not sure you could look at this fella, Burrito, and not have a smiling heart. We love him so:

It’s Betsy’s birthday!

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Whew! It’s near triple digits today and not the slightest of breezes. We arrived bright and early to find the construction crew already hard at work, breaking ground on the second phase of our expansion and until about 5 minutes ago, the day hasn’t slowed down once! But the upside of that is I feel fairly confident that the chimpanzees and bovines enjoyed their very decidedly summer day and all it brought their way. How does it get better than that?!

First of all, today we celebrated Betsy’s 13th birthday! This endearing little bovine family of four bring smiles to our hearts every day. They continue to surprise us with their unique, increasingly independent personalities and we’ve been loving watching their wild mountain cattle sides emerge as they explore their summer pastures and even more space to do as they choose.

Chad and Anthony made Betsy a birthday bowl of oats, corn and alfalfa and well, the birthday lady nearly knocked Anthony over to get to it!

Betsy, her son, Nutmeg, and Meredith getting every last bite:

Betsy and Nutmeg:

If you look closely, you can see Jamie in the background. We’ll just go with the thought that Jamie was wishing Betsy a happy day. 😉

Outside of Betsy’s birthday party in the pasture, much of our time was spent thinking of ways to help the chimpanzees feel a little respite from the heat. They had frequent ice cube breaks, buckets of Gatorade, AND! We broke out the snow cone machine! Shaved ice in paper boats with a dash of blue Gatorade and a couple frozen raspberries. The seven are well acquainted with the joy of snow cones, but I’m not sure if Mave, Honey B and Willy B have had them before. They were met with the three’s usual level of suspicion and deadpan looks over what crazy thing the humans may be trying to serve them/poison them with. Once they tentatively tasted them, they seemed to be on board with the idea. Apologies for the lack of photos of the snow cones, but they tend to disappear as fast as we can make and serve them.

Foxie and Orange Blossom waking from a nap in the beyond toasty greenhouse:

This joyful guy makes all our hearts soar. Just because it’s sweltering doesn’t mean he can’t flail about with France Dora while lying down:

The rest of the day was busy humans cleaning and chimpanzees in puddles, resting in cool spots. The chimps are all in their night nests as I type this, but in the cameras I can see Honey B nesting in front of the fan, and Jody, Foxie and Annie with their legs up in the air against the caging. But of course, the boss lady, Jamie, is busy, still enjoying the evening enrichment of peanut butter, seed and raisin pine cones. As I told the chimpanzees goodnight, Jamie asked for her still beloved book of Salmon Sisters Xtratuf boots and without fail, whenever I hand it to her, she hoots with joy and hugs it close. She is holding it with one foot while the other foot and both hands are busy with the pine cones. Some of which she may or may not have stolen. It’s good to be boss.

In honor of World Chimpanzee Day!

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Today is World Chimpanzee Day! And this amazing day was sponsored by Erin Yuhas and her incredible colleagues at Hartford Healthcare Medical Group Norwich! Erin shared this wonderful message about their generous gifts for the chimpanzees:

“Our medical office wears “Jeans for a Cause” every Friday and my cause for the month of June was your sanctuary and these special chimps. Together we raised over $300 and, in addition to sponsoring a day, we also sent the chimps many items from their wish list–including tons of blankets for nests! With all of us having worked in the medical field for many years, we can appreciate all these chimps went through in the name of science. I was happy to be able to share my knowledge of chimps and of your sanctuary with my coworkers helping to create awareness. I’m not sure my coworkers really liked my fact sheets and quiz, though! (This made us smile, Erin! 🙂 ). Thank you for all you do for these beautiful chimps and for the ones still to come!”

To everyone at Hartford Healthcare Medical Group Norwich, thank you so much for your generous hearts, your willingness to share your knowledge of, and learn more about, chimpanzees! You couldn’t have chosen a more perfect day to sponsor. Always, but especially during these uncertain times we all face, your support means the world to us, and most importantly, to the chimpanzees. From our hearts to yours, thank you!

You can learn more about this special day and hear a message from Dr. Jane Goodall here: “July 14, 1960, is the day Dr. Jane Goodall first stepped foot in what is now Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania, to study wild chimpanzees. In honor of humankind’s closest living relative, World Chimpanzee Day is a celebration of chimpanzees and an opportunity to raise awareness about the vital need for worldwide participation in their care, protection, and conservation in the wild and in captivity.”

Jamie:

Jody:

Mave:

Annie, Missy, Foxie and Jody:

Honey B:

Burrito and Negra:

Willy B:

The wonderfulness of Mave

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Mave can be hot or cold when it comes to playing with the humans. Of course as much as we love to play with the chimps, we love it most when they play with one another as their relationships are the most important to their well-being. But when Mave does choose to play with the humans, like most of us, she has people she seems to prefer (of which I am not usually one), but she’s dignified you know, so at least with me she doesn’t usually let on that she’s really invested in whatever game we might be playing. 😉 But yesterday she bestowed me with a sudden game of chase.

Now Mave also has a very endearing one-size-fits-all habit when she’s excited about something. It might be in greeting Willy B, displaying, or just having fun and playing, but she will repeatedly leap up and down on all fours and kick her legs straight down when she’s in the air. Even when she’s being serious, it’s pretty cute. So as we were playing, she would run to the windows to get me to run outside and chase her from the other side of the windows and when I’d run back inside I could see her shadow going boingity, boing, boing boing, in anticipation of me running back inside, but the second I’d turn the corner to see her she’d just be sitting there as though nothing were going on.

Despite doing her best to pretend she didn’t have the time of day for my shenanigans, at one point she could no longer contain herself and went flying through the front rooms, grabbing a slinky on the way, and just flailed about in a blur of joy:

As a side note, we’ve been marveling at how dark Mave’s face has become after all the sunbathing she’s been doing in the chute lately. Here’s a pre-summertime Mave portrait that J.B. took:

In other news, the original playroom for the seven is getting a facelift and as the humans work over the next few days to update things, the chimpanzees will be spending more time in the other areas of their home (Young’s Hill, the greenhouse and the front rooms). Routine is important for captive chimpanzees, particularly those who have been in biomedical research, so when we have no alternative but to disrupt the norm a bit, we try to think of extra enrichment and exciting things for them to enjoy to help distract them from the temporary changes in their day.

Today began with a breakfast forage on Young’s Hill and as the afternoon warmed up, we served ice cubes (I have no idea why they love these simple things so much, but they sure do) and buckets of Gatorade. Burrito felt the best approach was to just lie next to the buckets and go for the triple straw method:

Foxie joined in: