Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

chimp enrichment

Holy Sheet!

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We recently asked for a few new sheets on the Wish List. As some of you might know, Rayne and Honey B seem to really like sheets, whether they are used for nesting, fashion, or playing! So overall bedding sheets are a great form of enrichment! The chimps can only have the flat sheets due to the elastic on the bottom sheets, however once we received and checked that they were chimp approved we put the sheets out on Rayne’s side. It was the first thing Rayne grabbed as you will see in the video! Honey B likes to think outside of the box, so she decided to use her sheets a little differently! If anyone has new/gently used top sheets they would like to donate for the chimps, we would be happy to take them off your hands!

Rayne with new sheets:

Just pictures of Rayne:

Jamie also likes to use them for nesting:

Now for the bonus photos!

Jamie scored big today on the forage, she only wanted corn apparently:

Negra was happy with her one ear of corn:

Jamie grooming Negra while Missy grooms Jamie:

**Reminders corner** Don’t forget we have lots of stuff still on the Wish List for Gordo’s birthday! Yesterday, we started selling tickets for HOOT!, you can join us in-person on September 9th or virtually! We can’t wait to celebrate with everyone, don’t miss out on the early bird pricing happening right now!

Book Club

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It’s no secret that quite a few of our residents here at CSNW enjoy looking through magazines and books. They all have their favorites, which got me thinking – let’s chat CSNW Book Club recommendations!

First up, we have recommendations from our O.G. chimp group, the Cle Elum 7. Jamie’s first recommendation would be I’m Lucy: A Day in the Life of a Young Bonobo by Mathea Levine. This has been Jamie’s favorite for a while now, along with the sequels Bonobo Lucy Grows Up and Is Bonobo Lucy Singing? She has a knack for knowing where the current copy is at all times. Today, for example, we were cleaning the playroom on the seven’s side. We had just swept up the floor and taken the trash can out when Jamie started gesturing at the trash can. I looked behind it, beside it, and below it to try and figure out what she wanted. I couldn’t find anything, but she kept gesturing. Finally, I looked inside the trash can and there lay her current copy of I’m Lucy: A Day in the Life of a Young Bonobo. Thankfully, it had stayed clean and I was able to grab it, wipe it off, and give it to her. She happily grabbed it and went off to nest with it in her hip pocket! Crisis averted.

I think Jamie would also recommend anything a la National Geographic, especially if it featured mummies. Extra points if it’s a cowboy boot book, too!!

On the other side of the chimp house, Cy would recommend something a little in the pop-culture scene. At the top of his list: People Magazine.

Often, when we take him a new magazine we will be met with excited grunts before Cy comes down to grab it and take it away for his own private reading session.

Some of the humans at CSNW are also very into reading. If you’re looking for a book to expand your knowledge of chimpanzees, we would recommend The New Chimpanzee by Craig Stanford. A few other favorites are Next of Kin by Roger Fouts, Through a Window by Jane Goodall, and In the Shadow of Man by Jane Goodall.

A few other staff recommendations, that are not chimpanzee related, are How to Be Perfect by Michael Schur (Diana’s pick), Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Grace’s pick), The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lax by Rebecca Skloot (Sabrina’s pick), and The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Chad’s pick). We’d love it if you would share your latest good reads with us in the comments! 🙂

And don’t forget- we are gearing up to celebrate Cy’s 33rd birthday on March 12th! We are planning a library themed birthday party for our book worm and have added the things we need to our Amazon wish list. Click here if you want to help us celebrate Cy’s birthday!

On a similar note, we are always looking for donations of magazines. If you have extras laying around, please consider sending them to us at PO Box 952 Cle Elum, WA 98922. Or, if you are local, drop them off at The Whole Pet Shop in Roslyn! Thanks in advance! 🙂

Bonus Photos:

Mave and Dora , hanging out, while Mave holds Dora’s foot

Burrito being handsome during a morning play session:

Foxie being her goofy self:

 

 

 

Wednesdays Book Club

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Though Jamie and Cy may be in different groups they had the same idea today, Wednesday is for reading.

Jamie’s current must reads are:

1. I’m Lucy by Marian Brickner – (a classic)

And a sequel to the Lucy bonobo book

2. Bonobo Lucy Grows up by Marian Brickner

Cy’s new favorite read is a magazine:

¡Hola!

Other than book club, it was a pretty quiet day, which is why it was the perfect day for reading!

Cy could not put this magazine down:

Jamie with both Lucy books:

Bonus photos!

Burrito:

Rayne:

Annie and Missy playing on the bench in front room 2:

And I will leave you with a series of Negra photos:

On the Eighth Day of Christmas…

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On the eighth day of Christmas, the chimps received cozy blankets. I think you all can guess who put these blankets to good use!

Special thank you to:

CeeCee M. for bidding on cozy fleece blankets for the chimps!

And thank you to everyone who has donated blankets to us over the holiday!

It’s Negra, of course:

Negra in her morning nest. She greeted me and then went back to sleep :).

To See a Mountain Covered With a Quilt of Snow…

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Snow, snow, snow, snow, snooooow!

Ready, set, name that movie! 🙂

If you guessed White Christmas, you would be right. Every year that I have been alive my family has watched White Christmas on Thanksgiving night. The songs tend to stick in my head throughout the month of December and today, as the snow really started to come down, I was hearing the “Snow” song on repeat. Since it’s been super cold out all day and there was no sign of the sun coming out, we decided to bring the snow in for the chimps. Check out the video for more!

A still of Jamie from today’s video:

Lucky, being her sweet self:

 

 

Burrito’s Sense of Humor

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Burrito is a funny guy! He is always making us laugh, but from time to time his group doesn’t always think he is so funny. For example, in this video Burrito may or may not have gotten a little too wild for Foxie’s taste!

As you can see, Burrito is having so much fun playing with the giant stuffed bear. Make sure to check out the Comfort & Joy auction! There are a lot of great Squishmallows I know Burrito would love!

Please enjoy this silly video and some bonus photos!

The rare close up of Missy:

Beautiful Negra:

Jamie eating snow:

A series of Foxie photos:

 

What’s in Your Pocket?

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I wanted to share a cute quick story from yesterday and today, which fits perfectly with our Comfort & Joy, the Quid Pro Throw online auction theme! Yesterday, we noticed at all points of the day Annie was carrying one particular blanket in her pelvic pocket all day. I was on the other side of the building cleaning most of the day, but at any point I saw Annie, she had this blanket in her pocket. I was finally able to snap a few pictures at the end of the evening. I asked Chad, who was lead in Annie’s side and he said he observed her with it a lot too! When Annie came to lunch today she had a new blanket in her pelvic pocket that she then proceeded to carry around for the day. I can only assume that the blankets Annie carried around seemed to bring her some sort of comfort, but we can never really say for sure.

The auction is going on now! You can bid on items for the chimps or yourself. Don’t miss out on all the fun, but don’t out bid me ;)!

Annie enjoying her evening popsicle with her blanket in tote:

Annie at lunch today eating avocado and holding a blanket in her pelvic pocket: