Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
It’s important to have priorities in life, and the chimpanzees at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest are good at deciding what is top priority (usually food) and what is a close ranking second, as you’ll see in the video below.
Here’s what the back of the lower mount for the GoPro camera looks like. I caught this photo last week of Annie standing next to it. The steel mount, custom made by J.B., has a hinge and opens up to slip the camera in and then has a padlock to secure it.
We celebrated Annie’s 40th birthday today! Her exact birthday is unknown since she was captured in the wild, but her records indicate that she was born sometime in 1974, and today is the day we picked to celebrate it. Annie certainly doesn’t act 40 at all! She’s still very young at heart—she shows her playful side daily when wrestling with Missy or running around Young’s Hill.
We wanted to celebrate her special day with some of her favorites—green grass, beets, green onions, piñatas, buckets of water, shovels, and chow! Thanks to some supplies Lisa Stuverud brought us we had a fun colorful party with new enrichment, too. We set up a breakfast forage first, and then volunteer Becca served Annie’s favorite veggies at lunch.
Here’s the party setup:
I love this photo — you can see the juice from the tangerine spraying to the side! Good shot by Elizabeth.
Annie with a mouthful of chow (she loves to wadge chow!)
Annie loves green grass, so we picked some for her and included bunches of it in their breakfast forage:
Some of her favorite veggies are green onions and beets:
The other chimps enjoyed the party too! Burrito the charmer practically posed during the forage for this photo:
Everyone loved the fruit! Here’s Jamie:
Jody:
Foxie:
Missy loved the green grass:
And Jody ended up getting the piñatas (there was a Dora the Explorer piñata too, but that was torn up before we could snap a photo!)
Foxie got a new troll and some knuckle rubs from Diana, which made her laugh:
And Negra spent a lot of time in hard-to-see spots during the day, but I did get this picture of her beautiful relaxed face:
Happy 40th Birthday, Annie!
As many of you know, Negra isn’t the most active chimp. Her favorite activity is curling up in a nice big nest with a blanket over her head (second only to eating night bags!) Today, Diana got a special treat when Negra decided to play chase with her. Of course, Neggie’s version of chase was basically moving from one door to another door that is about five feet away — meanwhile Diana had to run all the way through the kitchen and to the other side of the building to meet her. This went on for a few rounds and I was wondering what was going on, but figured Diana was playing chase with Foxie or Missy, who are both known for their playfulness. But no, it was Negra! So I rushed to grab the camera, and only got the last bit of their chase bout. Annie got Negra’s attention and ran around with her for a little bit, which was also a treat to see. We love seeing the chimpanzees come out of their shells—even six years after they first arrived they still continue to surprise us.
Annie, believe it or not, is turning 40 tomorrow! I’m a little late on this request, but if you’re interested in sending Annie a few (belated) birthday gifts, check out our Amazon wishlist. I added some of the toys she likes the most (and have worn out, so we’d like some new ones!) plus there’s plenty of other supplies we need to keep Annie and the rest of the Cle Elum Seven living in a clean home and happy as can be. Based on the video above, I’d like to think we do a pretty good job at giving these deserving chimpanzees the best life possible. 🙂
We’ve got a fun party planned for Annie tomorrow, but here’s a picture of her to tide you over until then!
Foxie and Annie both have a habit of getting mouthfuls of water and holding it for awhile. Annie sometimes uses the water later to wash her face, and Foxie tends to just take her time to slurp. Today they happened to both have mouthfuls of water, while in the playroom, and while looking at each other. They look like they’re having some kind of stand off.
Then Annie started to groom Foxie (they still had their mouths full) briefly.
And Foxie looked through some enrichment, testing out the trolls that were in front of her.
I’m not sure if you’ve ever noticed, but the Cle Elum Seven are really attractive chimpanzees. Just look at these beautiful faces:
Negra:
Jody:
Missy:
Annie:
Caring for captive chimpanzees can be a challenge. They are intelligent and curious, and they get bored easily. We’ve written before on this blog about how much effort it takes to keep the boss Jamie happy and enriched.
Burrito, though, is remarkably easy to please. He has few demands, and the ones he has are simple. He yearns for a full belly (the fuller, the better) and friends to play with. Luckily, we’re all about good food and good friends here, so Burrito is a pretty content man.
During a break between cleaning this morning, I went out to the greenhouse to see what the chimps were up to. As soon as Burrito saw me, he stomped his foot loudly on the platform to invite me to play a game of chase. I was more than happy to oblige.
A couple of weeks ago we celebrated Foxie’s 38th birthday, and One Green Planet shared the birthday video on their site today. Check it out and please share!
Speaking of birthdays, we have another August birthday coming up—Missy is turning 39 this Saturday! We have big plans underway already, including all of Missy’s favorites: socks, slinkies, kongs, and tomatoes!
Here’s some recent photos of the upcoming birthday girl:
Missy and Annie (this picture was posted to our Instagram the other day for the 100 Happy Days challenge)
If you want to contribute toward the birthday festivities, make a donation today in Missy’s name, or become one of her pals!
