Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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Advocacy Program Logo Design Contest

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CSNW’s advocacy program, Primate Patrol, mainly focuses on raising public awareness about issues that chimpanzees and other primates face in the entertainment industry. We are starting to broaden our efforts and provide tools for people to help apes in need for a wider range of issues. You may have seen our regular advocacy posts called “Take Action Tuesday,” where we have posted information on how to take action for exploited apes. (Most recently we posted about this petition—sign it now if you haven’t already!)

As part of our plans to broaden the program we are looking for a new logo and design. We want to see what talented folks are out there, so we are having a logo design contest, open to anyone! Visit this page to find out contest details. The new program will be called Eyes on Apes. Click on the contest link to read the mission statement and help inspire your creative design! We’re hoping contestants can come up with a tagline, too. If you have art or graphic design skills, feel free to send us your mock ups to [email protected] and please share the contest page with your graphic design friends and family!

Beautiful Jamie

As a prize for the logo we love the most, we are awarding a beautiful 8×10 matted print of Jamie, as well as a $100 gift certificate to the CSNW store. Jamie was exploited by the entertainment industry and pet trade and then used in invasive biomedical testing before being rescued by CSNW just over 4 years ago. She is one of the smartest primates I’ve ever known and it is so sad to think of how miserable she must have been in her previous life. Captivity is never an ideal place for chimpanzees, but we hope through our advocacy efforts that individuals like Jamie will get to a sanctuary, too. So, in recognition of Jamie, the contest will go up until October 31 (her honorary birthday).

Take Action Tuesday: Sign our petition! Retire all 110 NIH chimps

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As we discussed last week, the National Institute of Health (NIH) recently announced that they are “retiring” 110 chimps from the New Iberia Research Center (NIRC) in Louisiana. Ten of those chimpanzees are going to Chimp Haven, a sanctuary not far from NIRC. The other 100? They are going to Texas Biomedical Research Institute in San Antonio. Though they say they won’t be used in any more invasive testing, this isn’t a true “retirement.” The chimpanzees should be going to a sanctuary like Chimp Haven or the other six members of the North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance (NAPSA).

Please sign our petition to the NIH and help give these 100 chimps a retirement in a true sanctuary. Then spread the petition by sending it to your contacts via email and posting on Facebook, Twitter and other social media. Show the NIH that the public cares about chimpanzees and that we insist former biomedical chimpanzees go to true sanctuaries.

Baby love

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Foxie and I just spent about a half hour going through her doll collection. I was doing some work in the kitchen when she started making raspberry sounds to get my attention. When I looked her way, she pointed towards the bin of dolls. I went through it to see if there were any obvious new favorites I could pass her way but since I was unsure, I decided to pull out the entire bin so that Foxie could help me pick which one she wanted. We often do this for the chimps so that they get the choice, especially with Jamie who so often knows exactly what she wants. When I walked into the chimp area with the bin of dolls, Foxie took off running, starting a game of chase. We ran around the chimp area for a little while, with me chasing Foxie with her bin of dolls and Foxie spinning and laughing hysterically. We then set up in front of one of the front rooms. I sifted through the bin, pulling out ones I thought she might especially love. Foxie made her choices known by pointing and head nodding and I passed a few select dolls her way. With each one that I passed her, she kissed them and held them to her chest for a moment before turning back to the bin to see what else she could choose. We played “pass the troll” for a while, where she tosses a smaller troll out to me and I tickle her with it or we play chase with it, and then I pass it back. All of this typical, every day Foxie stuff– at least for the last 4 years…

While in the biomedical lab, Foxie was used as a breeder and had five babies, all of whom were taken from her almost immediately after they were born. She was never given the chance to be a mother. A few months after arriving at CSNW, Foxie fell in love with troll dolls, often carrying them around on her back and cradling them like a baby, a love that recently branched out to Dora the Explorer. Her love is complex though, and sometimes we witness her beating her dolls on the floor or with a tool. But a few moments later, she is back to loving and kissing them. We will never know what is going through her head, so it’s hard to say if she truly thinks of them as some sort of surrogate child (though I’m certain Foxie understands they are not real), but after years and years of having her babies taken away from her, it’s such an amazing feeling to be able to not only give her a “baby”, but to have her trust us enough to give it back after a game of “baby” keep away. And it all brings her so much joy! Chimps are resilient– we say it all the time– but after all the Cle Elum Seven have been through, it just can’t be said enough.

Young’s Hill Anniversary Forage

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If you were on Facebook this morning, you might have noticed that I posted a link to the video from the chimps’ first day out on Young’s Hill—exactly one year ago today! I can’t believe how quickly this year has gone by—I remember that day like it was yesterday. A lot has happened in the last year and we’ve seen so many changes in the chimps. Burrito hasn’t been the most confident in the open air but he is going farther and farther. Missy is a fearless running machine. Annie has gotten to walk through grass that she hadn’t seen since her infancy in Africa. Jody and Foxie were both hesitant in the beginning but will now spend hours exploring the hill. Jamie never showed any hesitation to exploring every inch of the hill, and protecting it from intruders (deer on the other side of the fence). Negra still doesn’t spend too much extended time out there, but she goes out most days first thing and soaks in some sun before heading back in to her favorite spot in the greenhouse or inside the playroom. Today, she was the first one out when I opened the door! She quickly grabbed some forage and went back in before I started filming, so I don’t have any Negra footage, but I caught shots of all the others enjoying their anniversary forage.

I can’t wait to see what changes and growth this next year will bring. Any ideas?

 

The many faces of Foxie

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Chimps, just like humans, have really expressive faces. Here at CSNW, Foxie definitely has one of the most expressive faces, many of which we’ve dubbed “Foxie’s cute face” or “Foxie’s sweet face.” Here’s a compilation of Foxie faces I found today, stretching back a couple of years:

Foxie’s “I got a new troll” face:

Foxie with a mouthful of food:

Foxie’s relaxed face:

Foxie’s “intense face”:

Foxie’s play face: (She is wrestling with Jamie)

Foxie’s sleepy smooshed face:

Foxie’s hoot face:

Foxie’s up close cute face:

Take Action Tuesday: Time is running out for H.R. 1513/S. 810

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Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest supports the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act. Watch this newscast from PCRM and, if you agree, Take Action. PCRM has a link at the bottom of the video to find a form you can use to contact your representatives to share your opinion.

Already written your letter? Share this post with everyone you know. Post it on Facebook, Twitter, and send via e-mail. Get the word out that GAPCSA needs more support to move forward in the current session of congress. If this bill passes, it would release all federally owned chimpanzees to sanctuaries. After going through invasive medical testing (which is mostly unnecessary according to the Institute of Medicine) they deserve to be retired. Just see what sanctuary life can do for chimpanzees like Negra.

Here are a few bullet points that you can include in your letter to congress:

  • Chimpanzees actively used in biomedical research are routinely tested on—undergoing surgeries, infected with deadly viruses, and injected with vaccines. They are very intelligent and suffer from immense psychological distress due to lack of proper socialization, separation from their mothers when infants, and absence of mental stimulation.
  • Evidence has shown that although chimpanzees are indeed genetically very similar to humans, they are a poor research model for many diseases due to basic molecular differences between the two species. For instance, chimpanzees infected with HIV do not acquire AIDS, which makes them a poor medical model for finding an HIV/AIDS vaccine for humans.
  • Many chimpanzees are currently warehoused and are not actively being used in testing, but it is still costing taxpayers millions of dollars to house them. Retiring them to sanctuaries will not only provide higher quality living conditions and care, but it will save taxpayer money.

 

Watermelon forage

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Today we put out a watermelon forage on Young’s Hill to accompany the chimpanzees’ breakfast.

Burrito, collecting some forage:

 

If you look closely in the next picture, you can see the bright green grass in the background starting to come back from the part of the hill that was burnt in the fire. It’s along the irrigation line, so that’s why it’s a solid stripe of green grass.

This is Jody, sitting by a post in the shade while munching on watermelon pieces:

 

And my personal favorite—Missy with a mouthful of watermelon: