This morning, Foxie was clearly feeling playful – stomping around the playroom and doing somersaults. Jamie noticed this, approached Foxie, and swiped one of Foxie’s beloved dolls. (Jamie knows this is a surefire strategy for initiating play with Foxie.) Jamie’s move kicked off a long game of wrestling and doll keep-away.)
Animal Welfare
Happy Birthday, Burrito!
For B’s big day we centered everything around his favorites: food, food, and more food! We spread out the meals into many different portions so that about every hour the chimps had a quick snack. We also had a small forage in each of the enclosures, so it was basically Burrito’s dream come true—a way to eat pretty much the entire day away.
Here’s some photos of the birthday guy’s first party in the greenhouse, where we had a chow and tea forage:
Mr. B:
Annie:
Jamie:
Negra:
And then in the playroom we had more tea, some blackberries, and lettuce to snack on:
Annie:
Missy:
Jamie:
Jody:
Thanks to all of Burrito’s pals for helping make this day great for him and again to Tracy and Jenny who sponsored the day!
Low-key play
Missy and Annie tend to play rough when they wrestle, but Missy tones it down a little for the elder and slower Negra. Here you can see some quiet low-key play between Negra and Missy, but toward the end Annie steps in and Missy picks up the pace a bit.
New Year, Same Old Games
It may be a new year, but Annie and Missy spent their morning in a good old-fashioned play session.
Welcoming in the New Year
We are all continuously so amazed by how generous our supporters are—truly, you all keep this sanctuary running! We are able to give Jamie, Foxie, Burrito, Missy, Annie, Negra, and Jody a cozy warm home, good healthy food, long-lasting friendships with caregivers, and an endless supply of trolls, boots, and other enrichment directly because of YOU.
This year, our family of staff and supporters has grown stronger and our hearts have only gotten bigger from how grateful we are to see these seven special beings live their lives without the fear of being in confined biomedical lab cages—not knowing what would happen next.
Now, you can see in their eyes they trust us. They trust us. It truly amazes me after all they’ve been through, that they not only forgive humans, but learn to build friendships with confidence, trust us with their most prized possessions, and even help us out when needed. It’s because of your support that we can maintain these important relationships with these chimpanzees and provide them with hope, love, home, and sanctuary.
Our goal for year-end giving of individual donations was fairly optimistic, but we’re getting closer and closer every minute that we creep toward welcoming 2015. As I write this, we are just $1,512 short of our goal for year-end giving! In just a few short hours, you can help us make it to our goal for this year (or surpass it!)
Dora and friends got dressed up for the New Year’s Eve bash:
Everyone enjoyed a sparkling apple cider forage, especially Jamie:
Missy had her own technique:
Everyone else was busy collecting the nuts and coconut flakes we scattered around like confetti:
Foxie:
Annie:
Jody:
Negra:
Cheers to you and yours, and Happy New Year from all of us at
Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest!
Monthly favorites
Earlier this year, we phased out the individual Facebook pages for each chimp in favor of consolidating posts to our main CSNW Facebook page, with the promise that we would post our favorite photos of each chimp every month. Sometimes they are photos we haven’t posted to the blog before, and sometimes they are repeats, but ones that are definitely worth repeating! This month I selected some that haven’t been posted on the blog or Facebook before. I also wanted to thank everyone for their support during this busy month, and all year long!
You don’t have to be on Facebook to see our posts there — here’s the one from today:
Favorite staff photos
J.B. and I played a bit of a trick on Elizabeth, Debbie, Katelyn, and Keri recently.
I asked each of them to send me their favorite photos that they had taken, with the reasoning that I wanted to do an end-of-year “staff photo picks” blog post. Our real intention was to get them a Christmas gift with their favorite photo printed on metal. Pretty sneaky, right?
It worked beautifully – they were genuinely surprised by and (I’m pretty sure) happy with the gifts. Of course they couldn’t pick just one photo each, because they are all such great photographers!! Plus they love all of the chimps so much. So I had to narrow it down from the several photos they picked. There were a variety of factors to consider, including which photos would likely look best once printed on the metallic surface.
I figured I may as well go ahead with my cover story and share the photos on the blog so you too can enjoy them.
These are the four photos I had printed for their gifts:
Debbie’s photo (Foxie):
Keri’s photo (Annie):
Elizabeth’s photo (Burrito):
Katelyn’s photo (Foxie):
Just because I feel the need to have all of the chimps represented, here are a few more favorites:
a photo J.B. took of Missy in her element:
Another of Katelyn’s – this one I am guessing will always be a classic of Jamie:
This was another of Keri’s picks. I really like it because of Jody’s extreme relaxed face:
I took this one of Negra in October, but it might be my all time favorite photo of her (except for the other 15 all-time favorite photos I have of Negra, taken by various staff photographers):
If you have a favorite photo of one (or more) of the Cle Elum Seven, let us know – we’d love to see what your favs are too!
