Annie is a clown with her best friend Missy, but otherwise she’s pretty shy. It’s not often that she engages her human caregivers in anything other than a brief greeting. Today, though, I caught her in a playful mood as she was making a nest in the front rooms.
chimp rescue
Burrito feeling playful
It’s easy to get distracted while cleaning the playroom. This morning, Burrito insisted that his caregivers take a break and entertain him for a while.
Old projects and new projects
Life with chimpanzees is wonderful, but it is far from predictable. Sometimes things don’t happen when you plan (and vice versa). Awhile back, we did a fundraising drive to raise money for a new door in the chimps’ enclosure. In exchange for donations, we promised to paint donors’ names on a new mural in the outdoor area. Well, we may be slow, but we do keep our promises! Today, volunteer Kim McAndrews (who is our volunteer graphic designer from Peach Design who designed the Out of the Box auction logo, among many other things) is working hard on that mural. Here are a couple of shots of a work in progress:
As if that isn’t enough excitement for one day, David Binczewski (of Booshoot Gardens fame) and volunteer Ken Mikkelsen are here helping J.B. plant the first round of bamboo on Young’s Hill.
We’ll be sure to share more photos when the projects are completed!
Intruder
While no match for equatorial Africa, living in rural Cle Elum does afford the chimpanzees some interesting experiences. The other day a garter snake made its way into the chimp house, and the chimps let their feelings on the matter be known.
Jody and her sunflower
Diana got some close-up footage the other day of Jody eating a sunflower from our garden. Notice how quickly Jody is able to shell the seeds with her prehensile lips.
Foxie and a doll’s head
Foxie is always coming up with new ways to play with her dolls.
Gene Hackman helping the Alamogordo Chimpanzees
So far the NIH has not budged on their plans to transfer 202 chimpanzees from the Alamogordo Primate Facility to the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research.
The chimpanzees have gotten some celebrity support recently, though – Gene Hackman wrote a letter to the head of NIH asking to halt this transfer. Check out this excerpt from his letter (it gave me chills in a good way):
“As you know, efforts to save the Alamogordo chimpanzee have drawn support from Gov. Bill Richardson, Sen. Tom Udall, and many other people around the state and across the country. I join them in urging you to fulfill the National Institutes of Health’s goal to ‘exemplify and promote the highest level of scientific integrity, public accountability, and social responsibility in the conduct of science’ by allowing these chimpanzees to live out their lives in the safety of a sanctuary.”
Read the full letter here: http://pcrm.org/resch/alamogordo/hackman.html
If you haven’t already, please contact the government about this issue. Your tax money is funding the laboratory housing and future experimentation on these chimpanzees.
Find out more ways you can help by following this blog for updates, as well as:
Animal Protection of New Mexico
