Watch King 5’s Evening magazine segment on CSNW here.
Buckshire Seven
Exciting Foxie stories
On Saturday, the night of the Cle Elum Seven’s one year anniversary, Jackie and I were hanging out with the chimps after dinner and we witnessed two amazing things. I do not have photographic evidence of these events, but I was so glad that Jackie was there to also see them.
First, long after the other chimpanzees had finished eating, Jamie was still hanging onto a bit of cantaloupe. Jamie seemed content to delay finishing her fruit as she carefully inspected Jackie’s boot. After several minutes, Foxie came over. There were probably a dozen troll dolls that were part of the party enrichment, and Foxie had three of them with her, one that still had on a wedding dress. Foxie put this troll doll in Jamie’s free hand, while looking away. Foxie continued to hold onto the troll doll until Jamie’s fingers closed around the doll. Then Foxie pulled her hand away and very slowly and carefully took the cantaloupe that was sitting by Jamie. If you’re a regular blog reader, you know that Jamie is pretty possessive of her food, and she is the highest ranking chimpanzee. This means that other chimps, as a rule, generally do not take food from Jamie. But this really appeared to be a trade. Apparently troll dolls served as a version of currency between these two!
The second equally amazing thing that occurred also involved Foxie. Jackie and I were handing out blankets in the front rooms, and Foxie took one through the fencing. This in itself is a bit unusual, but not unheard of – sometimes she’ll playfully take blankets or clothes, and then drop them. Every once in a while she’ll play a quick game of tug of war. But Foxie took this blanket (a very big fleece one) and eventually climbed up to the bed in Room Four and began to nest!! The blanket was long and hanging off of the bed, and Jamie immediately came into the room and began to pull on the end hanging down. Foxie’s played for a bit, at one point trying to still nest by wrapping the blanket around her, while Jamie continued to pull on the blanket. After a while Foxie dropped the blanket and Jamie left. Then Foxie got up and walked into Room 2, passing several blankets along the way, and picked up a pink one. She carried the pink blanket back to the far room, went back to the bed, laid the blanket down, and laid down on top of it.
It was a beautiful sight to see, and so special that it happened one year to the day after she arrived at the sanctuary. I’m so excited for what year two will bring!!
Negra’s new life
Tomorrow we are celebrating Negra’s honorary birthday and the Cle Elum Seven’s anniversary of their arrival to Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest.
Negra is about 36 years old. She was captured in Africa as an infant and brought to the U.S. to be used in biomedical research. She had four babies during her decades in research. She had over sixty liver biopsies while being used as a test subject for hepatitis vaccines. She has spent the vast majority of her life in small cages in various laboratories. She lived without access to the outside. Without windows. Without the chance to feel the sun on her face.
I think this photo, taken a couple of weeks ago, illustrates what sanctuary means to Negra:
You can support Negra today and wish her a happy birthday by giving a donation on her fundraising page. CSNW couldn’t exist without the support of so many. You provide the chimpanzees with a new life.
Link to King 5 video
You can watch the King 5 video online and pass it along to your friends!
Watch Seattle’s King 5 tonight
On Tuesday, the Cle Elum City Council passed a proclamation to make the Cle Elum Seven honorary citizens of the city. The Daily Record published a story about this, which was picked up by the Associated Press earlier today.
This afternoon Gary Chittim from King 5, who was here the day the chimps arrived, came out today to see how the Cle Elum Seven are doing a year later.
The story will be on the news tonight – tune in!
King 5 also has a new blog called Pet Dish, and Katherine Sather wrote about the proclamation today on that blog.
Chimp Sanctuary Supporters
Something new and cool for all of you to check out (if you haven’t already): http://chimpsanctuarynw.ning.com/
It’s a new social network for people who support the work of chimpanzee sanctuaries. It’s a pretty neat way to communicate with one another, find out what’s going on and talk about chimps. You can personalize your page as much or as little as you want. Hope to see some of you blog lurkers on there soon 🙂
Cle Elum Seven DVD slideshow – who’s interested?
I am so excited! We are almost ready to make the Cle Elum Seven DVD photo slideshow, set to music composed by CSNW’s very own Director of Operations, J.B., available to purchase in our online store.
Thanks to the wonderful work of Kathy Cochran of Cochran Productions, who put the DVD together, it is absolutely fantastic. It is a little over five minutes long and has LOTS of photos of all of the chimps. I continue to watch it over and over – it’s inspirational to see our chimp friends enjoying thier first several months of sanctuary life. We debuted the slideshow at the Sippin for the Seven event and received GREAT feedback.
I just need to make sure that we are going to be able to sell 25 dvds right away. We’re pricing them at only $15 a piece, so please think about all of the people you can give the dvd to for gifts (plus a copy for yourself, of course), and either comment on this post or email me separately to let me know how many you will purchase once they are available. As soon and I’ve received 25 pledges, I’ll make them available to buy!!
Thank you to everyone for your continued support and love of the Cle Elum Seven. You truly help to provide them with the sanctuary lives they deserve.