Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
Annie and Missy are quite well-known for their excited games of chase and wrestling throughout the chimp house. Negra, however, isn’t always the most likely play partner—and when she does play, she’s got her own speed (kinda slow). This time Negra was keeping up with the experts!
This video is a little longer than some of our others but I thought you wouldn’t want to miss a second of this fun play session. Thanks again to Patty W. for sponsoring today for us and for being Negra’s Pal!
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We had a cold, snowy, gray February here in Cle Elum – not the kind of weather these chimpanzees appreciate. So we’re all thrilled that spring is imminent. The skies are blue again, the sun is out, and the temperatures are mild.
The weather was so beautiful as I was driving to the sanctuary this morning that I decided we’d try to set up a breakfast forage on Young’s Hill for the chimps. But soon a cool wind picked up, so we opted for the sunny and warm greenhouse instead. The chimps thought this was a great idea.
Burrito:
Annie:
Missy:
Foxie:
Negra:
Jody:
There is a look I am privileged to see on the faces of the chimpanzees living in sanctuary here and it is a look that gives me chills every time I see it. It is the look of satisfaction, which, to me, is even better than joy. Merriam Webster defines the word as follows:
sat·is·fac·tion \?sa-t?s-?fak-sh?n\
: a happy or pleased feeling because of something that you did or something that happened to you
: the act of providing what is needed or desired; the act of satisfying a need or desire
: a result that deals with a problem or complaint in an acceptable way
I can’t think of a more fitting description of the act of sanctuary. Knowing that we have provided the satisfaction of freedom of choice whether large or small is an incomparable gift. It can be an elusive look to try to capture on film though. Can you see it?
Jamie:
Negra:
Burrito:
Missy:
Foxie:
Jody:
Annie:
One of the things I try to share whenever I write the blog is the unique experience of being here at the sanctuary. I am trying to capture and translate, as much as is possible with words, pictures, and video, the reality of being here now so that you might get the feeling of it. Today, as we were cleaning the greenhouse in the morning, I was inspired to try to capture the chimpanzees in the playroom from the vantage point of inside the greenhouse. Although it was a bit dark in there [this morning was cold, wet, and decidedly snowy] I was able to shoot a short video of Annie and Missy playing together in the loft. I love the sound of their play sessions, especially from above. If you were in the chimp house while this bout of play was going on you would hear the breathy-pants of chimpanzee laughter, the slaps of hands against each other and the floor, followed by the bounding stomping feet of chimpanzees in the midst of chase. I can not think of happier sounds than these!
Most of this video has no sound but turn up the volume at the end to see what fun it can be trying to film video when chimpanzees are involved. Enjoy!
For lunch today, caregiver Lisa served the chimpanzees corn, cauliflower, potatoes, cherry tomatoes, snow peas, and red onions.
Annie with a corn cob wadge (you can see that chimps don’t have the same hangups about “table manners” as we do):
Negra with a mouthful of cauliflower glancing out the window on her way to her favorite spot on the catwalk:
Jody:
Missy heading upstairs with her haul:
She settled in front of the window for a lunchtime view of the valley:
Okay, okay, yesterday was actually Groundhog Day but, as it happens, it was also GAME DAY so we may have been a little bit distracted! As it turns out, it appears the Groundhog has predicted 6 more weeks of winter. [And a Seattle Seahawks Super Bowl win! Oh, wait that wasn’t Punxsutawney Phil, that was me. Did I mention I love football?] Seahawks pride aside, the wind and the snow seem to be in agreement with the prognosticating rodent and have conspired to keep the chimpanzees primarily indoors today.
Annie, in the playroom, relaxing on the bridge:
Burrito, in the playroom, playing with a wooden toy:
Negra, in the playroom, lying down on the catwalk and watching Burrito from above:
Foxie, in the playroom, observing the paparazzi:
Jody, in the front rooms, relaxing on a bench:
Missy, also in the front rooms, relaxing on the bench:
You may be wondering about Jamie’s whereabouts. I can assure you she was around and making her usual rounds but was in no mood to have her picture taken today. Since she is the boss, I was only too happy to oblige her request!
Amazon.com recently launched a program called AmazonSmile. You may have noticed there’s a link to signing up on the sidebar of the blog that looks like this:
The simple explanation is that you follow that link and that leads you to a page to sign up for AmazonSmile and designate Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest as your charity to receive funds.
I signed up myself and wanted to explain a little bit more about how it works. The most important thing to know is that, in order for your purchases to help the chimps, you have to login in to smile.amazon.com (instead of just amazon.com) every time you shop.
So, you may as well take that link – smile.amazon.com and bookmark it. Once you’ve designated Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest as your chosen charity, when you sign in to shop it should look like this (yours won’t have the word “prime” if you don’t also use amazon prime):
Then you just shop normally and 0.5% of eligible purchases will go to the chimps! I haven’t shopped around too much to determine what purchases are eligible, but this is from amazon’s FAQ about the program: “Tens of millions of products on AmazonSmile are eligible for donations. You will see eligible products marked “Eligible for AmazonSmile donation” on their product detail pages.”
The donations through AmazonSmile will be made to us 45 days after a calendar quarter ends, so it will be a little while before we know how much we’ll be receiving.
And in case you had the clever idea of buying a bunch of stuff and returning it – amazon is way ahead of you – they will not count returned items in their donations.
Thanks for taking advantage of all of the many ways that you can help the chimpanzees. There are a few more listed here: www.chimpsnw.org/you_can_help/single/help-us-fundraise
And here’s some chimpanzee smiles from your favorite chimp BFF’s Annie & Missy:
