Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest is a finalist for a Seattle Weekly Best of the Web Award! We’re in the category of “Best Use of a Blog to Make Bank.” We’ll find out at an invite-only party on June 17th if we won.
Our friends at PAWS won the award for Best Online Presence – Nonprofit. Congrats to them and fingers crossed for us!
Sanctuary supporter Tamela just sent me an email with the photos below – Jamie the day she arrived at the sanctuary, and the photo of Jamie that Jackie took yesterday.
These photos side by side brought tears to my eyes – tears of joy for the last two years that we’ve known Jamie at the sanctuary and tears of sadness for the first 30 years of Jamie’s life spent living with an animal trainer then in biomedical research.
I have a feeling that we will all be experiencing this mixed joy and sadness this whole week leading up to June 13, 2010 – the 2nd anniversary of the chimpanzees’ arrival.
Thank you all for helping to make Jamie’s second chance at life possible.
Summer has been slow to come to Cle Elum, but today was beautiful, so we set up a breakfast forage first thing. Included were frozen strawberries, grapes, chow biscuits, nuts, smoothie in cups and fresh blades of grass. Everyone went for their favorites among the choices – Foxie for the grapes, Burrito for the chow biscuits, Jamie and Jody for the strawberries, Missy for smoothie, Annie for grass, and Negra for the nuts (while picking up grass for later).
With Karen and Don Young’s generous match for each new goal we reach towards our 2nd Anniversary Fundraising, we have just $873 to go to reach $40,000 and 2 caged windows replaced by bullet proof glass and $3,373 to go to reach our ultimate goal and replace three caged-windows windows.
Thanks so much to everyone who has donated and raised funds so far!
Only 27 days to reach the ultimate goal!
The King 5 coverage last night mentioned the chimpanzees who are still in laboratories. Chimpanzees whose lives, like the Cle Elum Seven, could also remarkably improve if H.R. 1326, the Great Ape Protection Act (GAPA), is passed.
Sometimes it seems the barriers to this actually happening are insurmountable – the opposition to the bill by some in the biomedical research community; the funds that would be needed to create space and quality care for the chimpanzees in sanctuaries; and the inherent politics of getting a bill passed that have nothing to do with those 600 chimpanzee lives (and the other 500 who are privately owned and would no longer be tested on).
But then I think about other countries that have passed similar legislation, the bipartisan support that the bill has within the house, and the tremendous determination of those working on the legislation.
And I think about those 1100 chimpanzees. Many of them have very similar experiences as the Cle Elum Seven. Like Negra, Annie and Jody, many were taken from their native home of Africa as infants and may have never experienced what it feels like to be comfortable and safe. Some, like Foxie and Missy, were likely born into captivity for the purpose of being biomedical test subjects and, like Foxie, may never be able to learn natural chimpanzee behaviors like nest-building. Others, like Jamie and Burrito, were former “pets” or “entertainers,” possibly raised as substitute human children, abused by their trainers, then sold into biomedical research.
Those mostly unknown 1100 chimpanzees deserve sanctuary life as much as the seven chimpanzees in our care. Their intelligence and individual personalities should be shared and appreciated. Whatever happens, they will always live in captivity, but they should have a second chance for a better life.
Look at Negra in the photos below – the first taken before her new life began, during her dark years of living in a basement with little mental stimulation, the second taken just days ago as she peacefully napped outside. And re-watch this video of Negra playing with Missy: https://chimpsnw.org/2009/11/negra-5/
Then check out the links below the photos about GAPA to learn how you can help create a better life for all of the Negras still in laboratories.
Learn more about the Great Ape Protection Act (H.R. 1326) and how you can help from these groups:
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
Humane Society of the United States
Project R&R
This week at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, the recently formed student group called PAN (Primate Awareness Network) is hosting Primate Awareness Week. They have a variety of speakers from the primate community speaking about issues in conservation and captivity, including CSNW’s own Sarah Baeckler and JB Mulcahy. Sarah will be discussing her experiences working undercover at a Hollywood entertainment training facility and JB will tell the story of the Cle Elum Seven. If you are in the area, you should check it out!
When Foxie first came to the sanctuary, she was pretty shy. It was clear she did not want any of the toys, blankets and other objects that we gave the chimpanzees every day. Then, she adopted a troll doll, which we named Trixie.
That’s when the troll soap opera began. At first, Foxie was very protective of her dolls and did not want anyone else to touch them. She’s come a long way.
In the video below, she is teasing Jamie with a game of keep-away. Foxie still has her limits, though, when it comes to her prized possessions. And perhaps Jamie has softened up a bit when it comes to Foxie and her dolls.
It’s a longer video than normal, but it will make a bad day good and a good day better, so take a break for a few minutes and watch it.
