Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

chimp pal

Love for Foxie

by

Today we wrap up our “Love for…” series with the one and only Foxie!

Foxie was born on August 8, 1976 at the Southwest Foundation for Scientific Research in San Antonio, Texas. Her records indicate her mother was Winny and her father was Brian. Foxie is one of 11 babies Winny gave birth to before passing away at Alamogordo Primate Facility in New Mexico.

During her time in the research lab, Foxie was used in hepatitis vaccine research and as a breeder. Foxie gave birth to four kids during her time as a breeder. She had a set of twin boys, David and Steve; records indicate David died at Alamogordo Primate Facility due to unknown causes and no date given. Steve passed away in 2015 at Alamogordo as well. Foxie also gave birth to two daughters: Angie (the 1st) and Kelsey. Angie currently lives at Save the Chimps in Florida and Kelsey made her way to sanctuary at Chimp Haven in Louisiana but unfortunately passed away a couple of years ago.

Foxie, and the rest of the Cle Elum Seven, were rescued from a windowless basement at the Buckshire Corporation in Pennsylvania in 2008.

Foxie on the day of her arrival to CSNW.

When Foxie first arrived, she didn’t want to interact with any of the enrichment items including blankets, pushing them all aside. Then one day, a bright pink-haired Troll caught her eye.

Since then, Foxie is almost never seen without one of her precious dolls, which now include Strawberry Shortcake, Dora the Explorer, and a variety of Disney princess dolls. Foxie loves her dolls as if they were her children, though she seems aware they are not actual living things. It’s not uncommon to find her carrying a doll (or two) in her mouth during a patrol around Young’s Hill…

carrying a doll on her back like a mother chimp would with their young…

taking naps or just relaxing with her dolls…

and playing with her dolls!

One of Foxie’s favorite games to play with her dolls is “Rescue.” She’ll put her dolls in “precarious” locations to “save” them.

Though it may seem endearing to most watching Foxie interact with her dolls as children, it’s also a brutal reminder of her past as a test subject. Would she have raised her actual kids (David, Steve, Angie, and Kelsey) the same way she does with her dolls? We will never know that answer because she was denied the chance to raise her own children. I would wildly guess though that she would have treated them the same and be a fun mother to them.

Foxie is affectionately called “Tiny” by her caregivers. She is the smallest one in her group, but don’t let her size fool you. Foxie embodies the adage “tiny but mighty.” Her tiny stature shouldn’t be taken as weakness and she’ll show you how serious she can be. Here is a series of her double kicking the door separating Foxie and her group and Willy B and his group.

Foxie can be suspicious of new caregivers. She seems to know the concept of which human can do what. She has been known to “tattle” on new caregivers who are training. Before I was hired, I was a volunteer and decided train to be a Level III volunteer caregiver. As I brought breakfast out for the first time to the Greenhouse, the chimps lined up waiting for their food service to begin. As I began giving smoothies out, Foxie ran inside the building screaming. “Weird,” I thought. Then a few minutes later, Foxie came back out to the Greenhouse, with Katelyn in tow! I figured Foxie had ran inside to tattle on me because I was serving them food for the first time. Up until then she had only seen me in the context of cleaning enclosures. This had happened a few times when caregivers are training to serve meals since. Foxie will go to the food service, and if it’s someone who hasn’t served before, she will go find Katelyn to let her know there is a “stranger danger” situation happening! Since then though, Foxie has accepted me and even allows me to babysit her dolls from time to time.

Foxie hanging upside down in the front rooms, laughing as she and I were playing.

Foxie is a good friend to everyone in her group, though that is not reciprocated all the time. More so, Foxie had a special relationship with Jody.

Jody was, from some caregivers’ point of view, Foxie’s protector. Though it has been a rough period adjusting to the loss of Jody, Foxie still has a good friendship with Burrito and Negra.

Foxie deserves all the friends in the world! Whether is be chimpanzee, human, or inanimate object! Thankfully, Foxie has 20 humans who call her friend through the Chimpanzee Pal program. If you wish to be someone who can symbolically call Foxie a pal, be sure to sign up to be her Chimpanzee Pal!

Love for Gordo

by

On this February 17th, let’s take today to celebrate our love for our very own Gordo Chimpanzee!

Gordo was born on July 19, 1988 at the aboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP) to his mother Andrea and father Les. Through his parents, he has had a few full and half siblings at other sanctuaries, including being half-brother to our very own Dora!

Like the other chimps born at LEMSIP, Gordo’s start to life began with being taken away from his mother shortly after birth and raised in the nursery with other infant chimpanzees and living in a small suspended cage.

From left to right, infant chimpanzees Arden, Regis (of the Fauna Foundation), Gordo (in front of Regis), Kareem (of Project Chimps), and Digger with their nursery caregiver. Photo found in the book “From Elephants to Mice” by Dr. James Mahoney.

 

When LEMSIP closed in 1996, Gordo and several others were sent to the Wildlife Waystation in Southern California. When he arrived, he lived in a small group including Mave and her longtime cagemate Goliath. According to the records we received, Gordo was separated from the group due to fighting with Goliath and placed in a group with Cy, Rayne, and Lucky, with Terry and Dora joining shortly afterward. This group would remain intact all the way through 2021, when Wildlife Waystation closed and the group, known as the Lucky Six, moved to Washington State to call Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest home.

Though I consistently tell everyone Lucky was the first chimp I met when this group arrived, it was actually Gordo I technically first met. When the ramp of the trailer carrying the chimps came down, we were trying to decide the logistics of who to unload anf bring doors first. When I stepped foot inside the trailer, the first transport cage I walked in front of had a chimp breathy panting and butt pressed up to the caging asking for reassurance. I asked who this was and J.B. replied, “Gordo.” The butt pressed to caging thing hasn’t ended and is a now a classic trait Gordo does when he wants reassurance from the caregivers. This doesn’t happen often. As when he first arrived, Gordo still does prefer the company and attention of his groupmates over the humans’, though now he has definitely opened up more to the humans since.

One of the first things we learned about Gordo was his affinity for boxes.

Gordo has really adopted the mantra of “If I fits, I sits!”

Also, “Even if I don’t fits, I sits!”

How did I end up being the one to write about Gordo? Easy. If there were a personality quiz that lined me up to any of the chimps, I am confident I would align with Gordo more than any other chimp living at the sanctuary. Like to socialize, but also love alone time, especially after socializing. Likes to stay out of drama, but also can’t stop watching drama… and maybe egging it on sometimes depending on mood. Mostly serious, but sometimes goofy. Independent but fiercely loyal. Laugh at our own jokes. Yup. I would definitely align with a Gordo personality trait.

One of the jokes Gordo plays on me is spitting at me at every meal service. I know they’re jokes and not out of anger or spite because Gordo has two very different spits. Similar to several others here, like Foxie, Honey B, and Terry among them, there are two spit settings. There’s the very accurate and small spits. These are attention getters or calls to play. Then there’s the mouthful, high rate, high area coverage types of spitting. These are the ones that show discontent. On average, I would say I get maybe 15-20 spits on average from Gordo and any meal I’m serving.

After serving a meal to Gordo, I usually come out looking like this:

He has remarkable aim, if you’re wondering. He usually runs away chuckling after a spit, usually running away to load up on with more water. To be fair, if the roles were reversed, I would probably do the same to him too because I think he would understand.

Gordo is indeed a funny, funny guy! I am so grateful for the 7 supporters who call him a Chimp Pal! If you would also like to become Gordo’s Pal be sure to sign up! All you support helps provide care for Gordo and the other residents of the sanctuary. I hope through these blogs you get to know Gordo like how I know him!

 

Be mine, Negra

by

Negra is a grumpy old lady. I have a feeling she’s been a grumpy old lady since she was born.

Mind you, we didn’t even know Negra until she was 35 years old. We met during our first trip to the Buckshire Corporation in Pennsylvania, back in 2007. Technically we didn’t even really meet her that time, because she hid behind the solid panel of her cage during most of the visit. My only memory of her from that initial encounter was the sight of her fingers reaching through the food slot, signalling that it was time for more peanuts.

During subsequent trips she started to come out of her shell, but only slightly. She was aloof, overweight, and severely arthritic. Her skin was ashen. In contrast to the others, who studied us intently, spat upon us, and even invited us to play, Negra remained largely disengaged. She seemed to have given up long ago.

Negra in lab cage

Near the end of our final visit, we emerged from the stuffy, windowless basement in which they were kept and removed our PPE. We sat on a nearby picnic table to cool off and began talking about what we thought life might have in store for Negra and her six companions once they made their cross-country journey to Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. Everyone agreed: Negra was in such a state that if we could just give her one year in sanctuary, we would consider it a victory. It felt like a big if.

For Negra, everything about her life in sanctuary was new. As far as we know, she hadn’t seen the sun or breathed fresh air in decades. As an infant, she had been captured in Africa and shipped to the United States for use as a biomedical research subject. She spent much of her life at the infamous Coulston Foundation in New Mexico, where she was bred to produce more chimpanzees for research and where she underwent regular dartings, biopsies, and surgeries as the subject of hepatitis vaccines safety trials. She had given birth to three children, all taken from her prematurely (and all, thankfully, later released from research as well – Angel and Noah now live at Save the Chimps in Florida and Heidi lives at Chimp Haven in Louisiana). When we met Negra at Buckshire in 2008, she was in a tortuous state of limbo: no longer leased to other laboratories for active research but needlessly confined to a barren cage nonetheless.

The sanctuary in 2008 was still a work in progress. But despite the outdoor area being still unfinished, Negra’s new home gave her room to walk and climb as well as sunshine and nearly endless vistas from every window of her two-story playroom. Somehow, seeing her in the environment of the sanctuary made her sickly state that much more apparent. At the lab, it was to be expected. At the sanctuary, and in the light of day, it was a shocking contrast.

We learned early on that Negra does things in her own time. And by that I mean some other time. Her bed—one of the many simple comforts she was never afforded—became a protective cocoon, the one place where she finally felt safe. We counted ourselves lucky on the rare occasions when she emerged from it to grace us with her presence.

Time passed surprisingly quickly in those early days. As the first anniversary of the chimps’ arrival rolled around, we toasted the fact that Negra had achieved her year in sanctuary. She had done it! And yet, rather than feeling like a the happy ending we envisioned, it started to feel more like a new beginning.

Two years later, we were able to complete the larger outdoor habitat where Negra, at the age of 38, finally stepped all the way outdoors.

It was a big deal to us. Her reaction, on the other hand, was a resounding big whoop…Bed was much warmer and softer, anyway, and far less chimpy and peopley.

But over time she would come to enjoy the outdoors as she does everything else: In her own way and on her own time. She only took advantage of the lower quarter of the 2-acre enclosure, perhaps fearing the thought of being so far away from the comfort and security of the familiar. Still, it was always exciting to catch her outside. Calls could be heard over the staff’s two-way radios whenever she emerged: Negra is outside! Negra is outside! Upon hearing the news, everyone would leave their tasks momentarily to watch her bask, however briefly, in the morning sun.

Negra has now had far more than the single year we had hoped to provide to her in sanctuary. In fact, she has now lived for over 15 years outside that hellish basement. And somehow she actually becomes younger with each passing year.

Last spring, as I was walking to the chimp house, I saw a lone figure moving through the tall grass at the very top of the hill, as far away from the building as you can get. I grabbed a camera with a telephoto lens and raced to catch up, partly to document the occasion but mostly because I couldn’t believe my naked eyes. When I reached the top I saw Negra atop the climbing tower, looking out across the Cascade Mountains and nibbling gently on a pine bough. At the age of 49, she was still recovering, still making progress, just as she does everything else: in her own time.

Of course, neither time nor experience in sanctuary have softened the old lady. Negra, now 50, is still a grump. And she’d still prefer the comfort of a warm nest to an outdoor adventure any day.

But who are we to tell a chimpanzee how to live? I’ll always find joy in witnessing those moments of courage but I recognize that sanctuary means different things to different people. For Negra it means peanuts and lettuce, sweet spring grass, a troll doll companion in the summer, peanut butter food puzzles, wrestling with her friend Burrito, a heaping pile of blankets, an occasional walk through the grass, and, perhaps most importantly, the freedom to choose among them as she pleases.

It’s a life made possible by those who have supported this sanctuary, with a special thanks to Negra’s Pals, Vicki, Monica, Chris & Lee Ann, Donna, Kathleen, Sharlene, Star, Stacey, Lorna, Jean, Melissa & Bruce, Jenny, and Alice.

You can be Negra’s Pal, too, and give this grumpy old lady the Valentine she deserves.

Be Mine, Cy

by

Cy is the leader of his family of nine chimpanzees. Contrary to popular myths about alpha male chimpanzees, he is kind, gentle, and caring. He is at times a reluctant leader—one whose dominant status has been bestowed upon him out of admiration and respect rather than being sought after and achieved for its own sake. But when called upon, he never fails to meet the needs and expectations of those who count on him.

Cy was born in 1990 at the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery In Primates (LEMSIP). He was taken from his mother and raised by humans, splitting time between the nursery playroom and a small cage suspended off the floor. He would likely have been subject to HIV or hepatitis vaccine trials but LEMSIP closed their chimpanzee research program in 1996 before he could enter the the adult wing of the lab. Cy was then transferred to the Wildlife Waystation in California, where he would live for over two decades. In 2021, he came to Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest along with his full sister, Lucky, and his half sister, Rayne, as well as Terry, Dora, and Gordo. A year later they were integrated with Willy B, Mave, and Honey B, who is also Cy’s half sister.

Cy at LEMSIP:

When he is isn’t called upon to lead his family, Cy can often be found sitting by himself in a corner, flipping through magazines. His favorite subjects are animals (but no cows, please!) and the latest celebrity photos from People and Us Weekly. He also loves spending time with his caregivers, playing quiet games of “tickle” or raucous games of chase. Among his favorite foods is corn on the cob—one of the few things for which he will exact a tax on his group mates (but even when he steals food, he does it in a kind and gentle manner!).

One of Cy’s most important roles is that of mentor and protector to his second in command, Willy B. His ability to accept Willy B’s anxieties and social challenges and approach them with patience and understanding is practically saint-like, and almost certainly a primary reason that Willy B has finally been able to live in the larger social group he deserves.

Cy’s new life at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest has been made possible, in part, by his Pals Monica, Daniel, Aprile & Robert, Emily, Thomas & Ranu, Katherine, Matthew, Penelope, Fritzie and Tami, who sponsor his care. You, too, can become Cy’s Pal or give the gift of sponsorship to someone you love.

After all, it’s hard not to fall in love with Cy.

Fall in Love with Willy B

by

Happy Valentine’s Eve!

On Saturday, we shared the Fall in Love with Honey B video, so you’ve probably been anticipating this one!

For a little background in case you missed Saturday’s post: a few years ago we made ‘Fall in Love with” videos for all of the chimpanzees. Like right now, these videos were part of a February fundraiser highlighting the Chimpanzee Pal program. The videos are at the bottom of each of the chimpanzees‘ webpages.

I now present to you: Fall in Love with Willy B (see video above).

I anticipated a lot of slinky footage for Willy B’s video, and I knew I would enjoy putting it all together, but it was even more delightful a process than I had anticipated.

One thing you may have noticed from Willy B and Honey B’s videos is the lack of images and footage of them outside. That’s because they are still wary of the electric fence and are choosing not to go into their “courtyard” even when given the opportunity. This hopefully will change with time, and it makes our continued expansion even more important so that they can enjoy a large playroom and indoor-outdoor greenhouse space too!

Tomorrow is the first Valentine’s Day that Honey B, Willy B, and Mave will be celebrating at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest.

Help us celebrate this special occasion by signing up to be a pal to one of the new three (Mave’s video is in the works) or to any of the chimpanzees at the sanctuary.

For a smaller donation, you can even be a Bovine Buddy to one of the three rescued cows or steer Nutmeg at the sanctuary (video to come before the end of the month)!  Pal and Buddy sponsorships help pay for the care of these unique and charming non-humans.

Thanks to everyone who already contributes to the sanctuary in a myriad ways, including through the Chimpanzee Pal and Bovine Buddy programs. Your donations are very much needed and appreciated!