chimp sanctuary

People often ask me who my favorite chimpanzee is. I don’t really like trying to pick one—and to be honest, I can’t. Each of the Cle Elum Seven are unique and awesome in their own way and I love them all. But I would say that I have the best relationship with Jamie. Sometimes, there are just different people that you “click” with a little more than others.

So, I wouldn’t want to say that Jamie is my favorite, but I definitely find that we spend more time together. Perhaps this is because Jamie is more human-oriented than the other chimps, and so we end up liking the same things. We also happen to share a birthday, which I think is pretty cool.

She likes to check out all of the caregivers’ shoes and boots, and we are more than happy to oblige. She loves to write and draw and use tools. I was thinking today about all the interesting and awesome things Jamie does on a day-to-day basis and what we have featured on our blog over the years, so I decided to compile a “best of” list.

As Katelyn described yesterday, Jamie occasionally likes to wear scarves or other clothing accessories. I love this blog post from awhile ago called “How to ruin a perfectly good scarf.” Fashion is important to Jamie, but sometimes playing can take precedence.

Speaking of playing, Foxie and Jamie are pretty great friends. Foxie is a total goof! Here’s a video from awhile ago of the two of them wrestling in a giant box:

I like this post from just a few months after the chimps arrived. We were still learning about all their personalities, and this captures Jamie’s fairly well.

Jamie also really likes to help us clean up. She will sometimes sit and watch us clean, as if she’s evaluating our work. As the Boss of the sanctuary, I suppose that is her job!

She’s also really good about testing out new things and making sure we’ve done things up to her standards. You could say she’s in charge of the quality control department at CSNW. She loves to also take new things apart using tools!

Probably one of the highlights of our day is when Jamie asks to go on a walk around the hill. This is the post where J.B. explains how we came to realize this is also Jamie’s highlight of the day!

I also really love remembering the day we gave a ukulele to Jamie. She was thrilled! She treated it just like any of her other projects—investigate every possible piece of it!

It is sometimes hard to describe Jamie, and maybe that just speaks to her uniqueness. I love this blog where Diana explains that Jamie is, well, a complicated chimpanzee.

Finally, as we all know, Jamie is an artist. Here’s some retrospective posts on a few of her artistic endeavors:

Jamie’s an artist! (June 21, 2008)

Jamie’s paintings (August 20, 2008)

Scribbling (September 9, 2008)

Jamie’s dexterity (April 1, 2009)

Jamie, the artiste (November 10, 2010)

Art (August 24, 2011)

Jamie’s letter to you (March 22, 2012)

Jamie’s artistic side (January 11, 2013)

Lend your vote to support Jamie’s wonderful mixed-media art in the HSUS Art Contest going on now until Thursday. You are permitted to vote once per day, so please keep voting for Jamie!