Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
Burrito is not the type to ever turn down a friend! He will never miss a moment to play, groom, or even display! He is a special guy who does not take life for granted. And because of that his caregivers also will never miss a moment with him as well!
Bonus photos!
Yesterday, I gave Jamie some lavender from our garden, she seemed to enjoy it:
Rare portraits of Missy:
The highly anticipated birthday video is here! We had such a fun day celebrating one of the sweetest chimps we know, Annie! I think Jenna explained Annie perfectly in her blog the other day. Yesterday, It was a pretty mellow party day for all the exciting food that was made! However, Annie is a low key gal, so I think she might have appreciate the exciting party that wasn’t so exciting to drew too much of Jamie’s attention. Though I do think Negra thought the party was for her, I guess we know what Negra wants for her birthday next year!
Annie Bird:
Rayne has many sides to her. She is sweet, intentional, fearless, brave, social, forgiving, and accepting (especially in her friends). While she is all of those amazing things, she is also funny and silly. The other day we kept finding Rayne in different positions on the firehose. Every time we walked by she was in a different position. Sometimes I think out of comfort and to watch what her caregivers were up to, but maybe also because she noticed it was amusing all of her caregivers! We will never know, but I have photos to share!
This morning I was lucky enough to be able to go around and capture some portraits. Portraits can be hard to get because the chimps are often moving around quite a bit or simply do not want there picture taken, as you will see at the end of Jamie’s photo series. Jamie threw her arm out and shook it to tell me she had had enough :). Fortunately, everyone else didn’t seem to mind me taking some pictures! So please enjoy!
Negra eating her eggplant at lunch:
Cy waiting for his breakfast chow:
Little Honey B, being Honey B:
Foxie and her doll:
Dora portrait series:
And of course Jamie:
It’s never a dull day when working with chimpanzees, each individual is so their own and also has their own agenda for the day! As you will see in the video, most days Gordo just wants to go on the Bray not giving his caregivers a second look, but on this day Gordo decided it was time to play chase with his caregiver from the chute to the Bray. While, Terry just wanted to give sweet kisses in the morning. I think we all know Honey B’s agenda is to derail the schedule for her caregivers as much as possible, as she should! But she also tries to carve out alone time with one of her close friends, Dora, which can often play into derailing her caregivers schedule, too. She is such a multitask-er :)!
Though somethings may “derail” our day, it’s also the fun part about our job. We don’t know what we are going to walk into, but what we do know is that everyday they are provided with as much choice as possible!
Gordo eating a pear series:
Bonus!!
Foxie playing a lazy game of poke the doll and maybe camera with me:
I just love her eyes in this one:
And a very snoozy Willy B! So snoozy I don’t think he even knew I took this photo:
Working with chimps can be a little loud and even overstimulating at times. That is why when there are quiet moments or sweet interactions, they mustn’t go unnoticed. Those moments can fill our cup up! Jamie’s side of the building has been pretty calm today, while Cy’s side has been making quite the ruckus for some of the morning. It did make for great “TV” for Burrito, but tension on one side can often cause tension on the other. However, Burrito’s side has been pretty easygoing. Jamie has even let individuals like Foxie and Annie have their fruit this morning. The best part of the day so far has been watching Burrito and Missy get so excited for their lunch forage that they had to play and laugh it out, even Jamie and Foxie decided to groom! My cup definitely got filled today :).
Negra watching her noisy neighbors on the Bray in the morning:
Wow, have we had a jam packed week and it’s only Wednesday! We had a procedure on Monday, a presentation on Tuesday, and Foxie’s birthday tomorrow!
Speaking of presentations, some of our favorite outreach events are the ones in our community! Yesterday Jenna, Grace, and I participated in the Summer Reading Program at the Carpenter Memorial Library in Cle Elum, hosted by the Cle Elum Fire Department. The Summer Reading Program has an array of different guest speakers that cover topics from learning about bee keeping, to exploring the fire station, to learning about wildlife tracking from Fish and Wildlife, and of course learning about the chimps!
Grace, Jenna, and I had different interactive stations for the kids to go to. For the first station, we showed the kids how to make enrichment for the chimps like raisin boards, paper braids, and fire hose knots! The second station was learning how to build a nest, which is always so fun to learn about, but obviously we had a nest building competition. For our third station we taught everyone about chimp vocalizations & behaviors, which obviously we taught everyone how to pant hoot!
Jenna teaching how to make raisin boards:
Here is Grace showing everyone an amazing nest she built:
Anna had to work yesterday, but Luna stopped by and built her own nest. I would say Anna has taught Luna well:
Here I am showing different vocalizations:
Thank you to the Carpenter Memorial Library and the Cle Elum Fire Department for having us! We had such a blast being apart of the community and teaching everyone about the chimps we love so dearly!
Bonus photo of Jamie:
Here is Willy B in recovery today! He is doing well and enjoying his stories on the TV:
