Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Animal Welfare

If Looks Could Kale

by

Jody has a healthy appreciation for fresh, hand-picked greens.

Recently, local volunteer Krissy has been delivering bags of primate chow to the sanctuary’s front gate. More often than not, she also leaves behind a large bin of produce from her home garden. This weekend, we added the generous assortment of leafy greens to the chimps’ lunches, which we then dispersed in Young’s Hill so that they could spend the afternoon foraging.

Most greens are cultivars of one species: cabbage. In its wild form, cabbage (Brassica oleracea) grows on the seaside cliffs of Europe. Over millennia, the domesticated variants have become a common food crop for humans around the globe. Despite their distinct grocery names, kale, collared greens, cauliflower, broccoli, kohlrabi, and Brussels sprouts are all just types of cabbage that have been shaped by artificial selection. Of course, “Farmer Jo” loves them all equally.

Today, Jo did her usual thing (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6) and gathered up an impressive bundle of greens. Although it was an unusually quiet day at the sanctuary, even around the chimps, the loud crunch of woody stems filled the Greenhouse for a short while. Negra spent the early minutes of the forage collecting the grapes and chow biscuits nearest to the Greenhouse, but missed out on the kale. Upon returning, she sat behind Jody and begged for a piece. Jo ignored her, but eventually discarded enough leafless stalks to satisfy Neggie, who promptly scooped them up and waddled inside.

Compared to the usual dynamics, today’s drama was relatively tame.

The Bounties of Sanctuary

by

First, the news you’ve been waiting for: Burrito is back with his group! It’s been two weeks to the day since his encounter with the rattlesnake.

I’m going to be completely honest here. I thought we were going to lose him the day that he was bitten. I also thought we were going to lose him those many months ago when the big conflict that ended our attempts at integrating the groups occurred.

I’m not the most optimistic of people, so take that into consideration (I can picture J.B. giving me a look that says, “you don’t say?!”).

Burrito, however, seems to be an optimist with an incredible will to live. That, combined with an amazing staff and quick-acting veterinarian in Dr. Erin, who has a whole network of medical professionals on speed dial (a particularly grateful shout-out to anesthetist Dalila Fairchild), gave me hope.

What was truly heartwarming, however, was the immediate outpouring of support you all showed, which carried over into last week’s HOOT! virtual event. I really just can’t get over it. THANK YOU!!! You all remind me that there are good, no, not just good, but great people in this world who truly care and take action when needed. It was the bounty of love, even more than the financial contributions, that was so moving.

Anyway, enough of my yammering, here are some awesome photos of the day, most of them taken by Anna and J.B

First order of business for Burrito on the hill: approach Jody for some reassurance:

which she deftly provided, even while managing a bounty of cabbage leaves (thanks, Krissy!)

Burrito decided to stick close to Jody for a bit:

Then he ventured towards Negra, who gave him a reassuring extended arm gesture:

Negra’s bounty was kale:

Appropriately reassured, Burrito settled into foraging on his own:

 

 

Later in the day, it was time for the other group to have access to the Courtyard. To carry the theme of this blog post, I noticed that there was a bounty of grapes hidden under the grape vines on that side of the building.

Here’s a photo of the vines with Honey B at the top of the chute in the background:

Here’s what I picked in just 20 minutes:

Willy B was watching my activity from the Courtyard, so of course grapes were on the menu as part of dinner:

I hope you experienced a bounty of something good this past week too.

Veterinary Clinic Tour

by

The sanctuary’s upgraded veterinary clinic has come up quite a bit lately.

We have utilized this area frequently over the past year, and it recently gave us the ability to respond to an unexpected emergency. Thanks to its impeccable usefulness and immediate relevance, the clinic was also mentioned several times during last night’s virtual auction: HOOT! 2020. As we explained to the event’s participants, your generous contributions have built this on-site clinic for the chimpanzees and will help us to add additional equipment and vital supplies in the near future. We caregivers are all comforted to have such a modern and secure facility located just across the hallway from the chimpanzee enclosures so that any necessary procedures can be done safely and effectively.

Because we are so grateful for all of the support and we love to teach people about our work, Dr. Erin and I thought it would be fitting to take you all on a virtual tour of the veterinary clinic! In the video, Dr. Erin also explains some of our protocols and we would love to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you once again for making all of this possible!

 

See you soon at HOOT!

by

It’s a very smoky day at the sanctuary. We are thinking of all of those impacted by the fires all over the northwest right now.

We are thankful for so much, including Burrito’s continued recovery. Today he got to spend some time with Jody!

We are also extremely thankful for you, the generous and caring supporters of the sanctuary.

We hope you will ALL join us, even if you are not in a position right now to donate or bid on items, for the Virtual HOOT! gala tonight, starting in just a few hours at 6:00pm PT.

Anyone can watch, either on Facebook or on the auction home page.

If you signed up for the Happy Hour, you’ll be seeing the chimpanzees in real time very soon as they have their non-alcoholic version of the pant-hootch specialty drink.

Cheers to you and cheers to hope for the future!

hoot logo

Happiest Birthday, Keri!

by

Today was sponsored by our wonderful and dear friend, former staff and current volunteer caregiver (on hold due to the pandemic), Keri Heniff, along with her husband, Bob Mark, and their sons, Cody and Skyler. Keri shared this beautiful, heartfelt message about her gift:

“I wanted to sponsor today in celebration of my next trip around the sun and to celebrate what has been and look forward to what will be.

The chimpanzees at CSNW have reminded me I’m never to old to explore new things; to continue to be resilient in the face of adversity; to have courage enough to grow and try new things; to relax and soak in the moments of the day; to trust in spite of fear; that it’s okay to snuggle up in a blanket (or 20) and enjoy the comfort it brings; to play like it’s the only mission of the day; and to squeak and moan at the sight of exciting food; and so, so much more. These chimps have brought so much joy into my life, for which I will always treasure.

And all of the human primates associated with the sanctuary; staff, volunteers, donors, followers old and new, continue to remind me what determination, humility, generosity, sincerity and a genuine concern for the well-being of these chimps (and bovines too) can do to bring together complete strangers. The common goal to support and love these beings unifies us and there’s nothing more that I could ask for in my upcoming trip around the sun.

So, cheers to today and the year ahead!”

Keri, we miss you every day and no doubt the chimpanzees feel the same. Know that you are part of our chimpanzee family, always, and we are so happy to celebrate this special day with you! You are a gift of a being and we humans and chimpanzees all, are so lucky to call you friend. And thanks for helping to remind us of all there is, even in these times – especially in these times, to celebrate in life. We hope you have the most beautiful day, one to remember in all the best ways.

Happy Birthday, Keri!!

Jamie:

Missy:

Burrito:

Negra:

Foxie:

Jody:

Willy B:

Honey B:

Relaxation, Recreation, Recovery

by

There seemed to be a different theme to various parts of the Chimp House today. Depending on what area you happened to find yourself in, you either found chimpanzee people relaxing and taking in the nicer weather we’ve had today, thrilled with a new enrichment item, or recovering from a recent injury.

For the Girl Gang, today was all about Relaxation!

Though Foxie was playing with Orange Blossom and Blueberry Muffin, it was such a relaxing play session.

Jamie also spent most of the day relaxing, though always prepared to lift herself up if there was some supervising to do around the property.

Jody decided to spend most of the day as close to Burrito as she could. She even decided to nap in the room adjacent to his to ensure optimal closeness.

On the other side of the building, today was about Recreation!

Willy B, Honey B, and Mave received Boomer Balls as an afternoon enrichment puzzle.

Right after they finished their lunch, we brought the Boomer Balls out and showed them. They became really excited! Especially Mave! When Mave saw the basket which contained this puzzle inside, she stopped what she was doing and raced for the door. She waited patiently as we set up the Mezzanine. Once we gave her access, she bolted in and immediately claimed hers.

Any time Honey B or Willy B came even remotely close to her and her prizes, she would gather her things up, and move to a new location.

When Willy B finished his puzzle, he set off to search the entire Mezzanine for any potential missed food. Though he seemed as though he wished a magician appeared to alakazam him some more nuts, he in turn looked like a magician himself.

Finally, Recovery!

Burrito is still recovering from his difficult day.

To help lift his spirits, caregiver Kelsi brought him a whole pomegranate.

The rest of the day, Burrito was slowly becoming more like his old self again. While in his recovery room, he let out a mini-display and then demanded to be let into the other front room. We obliged with his demands since we needed to get into the room he was in to clean it. Once in that room, it was playtime for him.

Before that though, we had to get some medicine in. As shared on Facebook and Instagram, Burrito has been taking his medication in little grape juice bottles, usually with the use of a straw. He decided which straw he wants to use, usually a regular paper straw or one of the long plastic tubes. Today, the choice was mostly the long plastic tube. Initially he grabbed the straw to play tug-o-war and had no interest in taking his medication! So I made a deal with him. If he drank his medicine, we would play! After every sip was gone, he grabbed the tube and passed the end to me for tug-o-war.

When he was tired of the tube, the game still continued, but this time with a blanket.

We are all cautiously optimistic about Burrito’s recovery. The more and more we research the venom and some of the long lasting effects it can leave, the more we realize we are still not out of the woods yet in his recovery. We are, however, completely enthralled by Burrito’s resiliency. We are also completely over the moon at the amount of support Burrito has received from around the world. We have received messages far and wide on how people could help Burrito. Yesterday, we added a special page to our Virtual Hoot! 2020 site specifically to help the costs of Burrito’s recovery. We cannot thank each and everyone of you enough for all your kind words, donations, and support. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you!

Morning Greetings

by

Burrito ate a late-night snack of baked apple slices and a banana and took some medication in grape juice, then he slept soundly all night.

This morning he woke up a bit brighter-eyed and had enough energy to greet Jamie, Jody, and Foxie who all wanted to inspect and groom his still slightly swollen hand and his face (if you haven’t been following the last few days, here’s why Mr. B is in recovery). When J.B. came in early,  Burrito scooted over to play poke/tickle while still lying down.

Things are all trending in the right direction!

My mental energy has been focused on Burrito these last few days and some of my plans for HOOT! outreach have gone by the wayside. If things continue to look good, and after getting some sleep, I plan to work some more on that event which is coming up in just a few days now!

It turns out that rattlesnake antivenin, which we sourced from the nearest human ER, is extremely expensive, so I might be adding a fundraising page to help pay for Burrito’s medical expenses (so far $12,000) on the virtual auction/event site later today.

Thank you to those who have already inquired about making donations towards his care!