Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

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Foxie’s new love

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It’s a winter wonderland at the sanctuary today:

snowfall

 

But Foxie is keeping Dora warm inside:

Foxie and dora

foxie and dora by window

Foxie has not left her new Dora the Explorer doll alone since she got it yesterday as part of the Valentine’s Day celebration. I found her gazing lovingly at it several times today.

Meanwhile, I have been gazing lovingly at our Share the Chimp Love fundraising site! We are 74% to our goal with 12 days to go. Thank you so much to everyone who has donated and shared the site and the Share the Chimp Love video.

I am really looking forward to the Grapes for Apes wine tasting in Kirkland on Saturday, March 1st where we can celebrate reaching the $10,000 goal for the month, some other really loving things that occurred this February (more on those soon), and the kick-off to our Hoot! ticket sales. There certainly are a lot of things to look forward to both inside and outside the chimp house in the coming months!

Lunch

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For lunch today, caregiver Lisa served the chimpanzees corn, cauliflower, potatoes, cherry tomatoes, snow peas, and red onions.

Annie with a corn cob wadge (you can see that chimps don’t have the same hangups about “table manners” as we do):

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Negra with a mouthful of cauliflower glancing out the window on her way to her favorite spot on the catwalk:

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Jody:

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Missy heading upstairs with her haul:

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She settled in front of the window for a lunchtime view of the valley:

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Missy and Life

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I’m not sure why I thought of this today. Maybe it’s because The Share the Chimp Love heart is a photo of Missy and Jody kissing or maybe it’s because I was watching Missy and Foxie play today, or it could be because Debbie posted a photo of Annie and Missy on Instagram and Facebook earlier.

In any case, you may not have heard the story of how Missy almost didn’t make it to sanctuary. I use the phrase, “second chance at life” when talking about chimpanzees going to sanctuaries, but for Missy she very literally got a second chance at living.

About a month before the chimpanzees left Buckshire in Pennsylvania (the private facility that owned them and leased them to different laboratories for decades), all of the chimps had health check-ups. During these check-ups, the veterinarian discovered that Foxie and Missy had uterine tumors.

Buckshire quickly arranged for both of them to have hysterectomies. The surgeries went fine, but when they were transporting Missy back to Buckshire, she crashed. She was brought back to the veterinarian under manual ventilation and had a very weak pulse.  From what we were told, they “worked on her for 10 minutes and brought her back.”

We didn’t find out about this until later, and it came as a shock to know that she was so close to not having her chance to enjoy a sanctuary home. It remains a reminder to me that each moment of sanctuary, each moment of life, is invaluable.

Missy seems to have embraced this notion too. She certainly has a special zest for life.

Here is a look back at some photos of Missy over the last few years:

Missy in the transport cage on the truck that transported the chimpanzees from Pennsylvania to Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest:

missy on transport cage

 

Missy (left) and Burrito on the day they arrived to Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest (Missy’s belly is shaved, and you can see the scar from her hysterectomy that was done before she came:

Missy and Burrito first day

 

being groomed by her BFF Annie:

Annie grooming Missy

 

in action – leaping towards Jamie:

missy leaping

 

Missy (left) and Annie demonstrating chimpanzee smiles (notice their top teeth do not show at all):

missy annie smiling

 

doing a headstand before she lays down in her nest:

missy headstand in nest

 

looking a bit like a football player as she runs bipedal back to the greenhouse with a mouth and hands full of food:

missy bipedal with food

 

walking on the fire hose like a tightrope walker:

missy balance

 

riding the bamboo down after climbing up, with Jody looking on from below:

Missy climbing bamboo

 

a very familiar sight: Missy running across Young’s Hill

missy running on youngs hill

 

at the top of a post near the tall bamboo:

Missy top of post

 

just hanging out:

missy swing down

 

using a tool to get treats from the “termite mound” on Young’s Hill

Missy with tool termite mound

 

playing a raucous game of chase with Foxie (Foxie’s on the left):

Missy chase Foxie

 

with all of her activity, Missy does make time to rest too:

Missy on blanket

 

We have a special way for you to celebrate Missy and all of the lives of the chimpanzees by Sharing the Chimp Love this month. We’re now 21% towards our goal of raising $10,000! Watch and share the Share the Chimp Love video below and on the fundraising website.

Thank you to those who have made donations and set up fundraising pages! Check out the donors, their messages of love, and the fundraisers on the Share the Chimp Love site.

Jamie’s new favorite boots

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Jamie loves all her boots, but she definitely has some that are the center of her attention for awhile. I think of it like when I get a new song or album, I listen to it over and over until I’m sick of it—but I still like it and will want to listen to it again someday. Jamie’s songs on repeat right now are the boots she got from Bill last week. She can’t get enough of them! As soon as we try to wash them, she wants them back immediately, even if they are wet. And she’s asked JB to wear them around the hill, even when they are wet. Of course he is happy to oblige—anything to keep the boss in a good mood. I have a feeling these boots will be her favorite for awhile.

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Sharing the Chimp Love

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We just launched our February Share the Chimp Love campaign, and we’re 10% towards our goal of raising $10,000!

Have you seen the Share the Chimp Love video yet? If not – go check it out, read about the campaign, make a donation, and set up your own fundraising page to start sharing the love! We could use your help!

Share the love

If you’re signed up for our e-newsletter, you got the notice this morning about our Share the Chimp Love campaign, as well as other exciting events and news like the March 1st Grapes for Apes wine tasting and a story about Annie. If you’re not signed up for our e-news, you can sign up at the bottom of the newsletter.

Go here now to Share the Chimp Love: love.chimpsnw.org

Negra with seeds on her belly

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It’s no secret that Negra has a big place in my heart. I first wrote about my love for her in this blog post from 2008, before the chimpanzees had made the journey across the U.S. to come to Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. She has many endearing qualities, including her enjoyment in watching her caregivers dance (as shown in the Dancing with Negra video from 2009), the multiple stages of her droopy lip, and her love of the night bags that we give the chimpanzees after dinner each night (there’s a short video of Negra getting her night bag here).

As mentioned in this post, one of my favorite sights is a very content Negra eating her night bag while the shells of the seeds in the night bag drop on her belly. Tonight, I finally got a few good photos of just this. Negra has lost a little weight at the sanctuary, but, despite our attempts at rationing her food, she still has a buddha belly. She actually eats quite a bit less than the other chimpanzees and isn’t as food focused as, say, Burrito, but she’s also the least active of the chimpanzees. I consider Negra’s shape to be a pretty endearing quality in itself.

I hope these photos make you as happy as Negra with seeds are her belly makes me.

Negra with night bag

Negra eating night bag

Negra eating night bag

Negra eating night bag goodies

Negra looking at camera with night bag

 

 

Shop AmazonSmile to help the chimps

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Amazon.com recently launched a program called AmazonSmile. You may have noticed there’s a link to signing up on the sidebar of the blog that looks like this:

Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

The simple explanation is that you follow that link and that leads you to a page to sign up for AmazonSmile and designate Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest as your charity to receive funds.

I signed up myself and wanted to explain a little bit more about how it works. The most important thing to know is that, in order for your purchases to help the chimps, you have to login in to smile.amazon.com (instead of just amazon.com) every time you shop.

So, you may as well take that link – smile.amazon.com and bookmark it. Once you’ve designated Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest as your chosen charity, when you sign in to shop it should look like this (yours won’t have the word “prime” if you don’t also use amazon prime):

amazon smile screenshot

Then you just shop normally and 0.5% of eligible purchases will go to the chimps! I haven’t shopped around too much to determine what purchases are eligible, but this is from amazon’s FAQ about the program: “Tens of millions of products on AmazonSmile are eligible for donations. You will see eligible products marked “Eligible for AmazonSmile donation” on their product detail pages.”

The donations through AmazonSmile will be made to us 45 days after a calendar quarter ends, so it will be a little while before we know how much we’ll be receiving.

And in case you had the clever idea of buying a bunch of stuff and returning it – amazon is way ahead of you – they will not count returned items in their donations.

Thanks for taking advantage of all of the many ways that you can help the chimpanzees. There are a few more listed here: www.chimpsnw.org/you_can_help/single/help-us-fundraise

And here’s some chimpanzee smiles from your favorite chimp BFF’s Annie & Missy:

web Missy annie smile play structure YH IMG_2658