Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
Here’s the link to the King 5 story that just aired about Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest: http://ow.ly/aGS3M
Thanks Gary and Ken for making the trek out to Cle Elum and for sharing the GoPro footage! And thanks to GoPro camera donors who helped us purchase the camera earlier this year and the special group of volunteers who helped install the camera mounts on Young’s hill (more on that later).
The chimpanzees had a visit from reporter Gary Chittim and videographer Ken Jones of King 5 today! At least two of the girls were smitten – Jamie checked out their boots and Jody shyly spied on them from the greenhouse.
They will be airing the visit and some unique video footage of the chimpanzees on Seattle’s NBC station tonight at 5pm. I won’t give too much away, but you’ve never seen this perspective of the chimps before.
King5 will have the story on their website after it airs, and we’ll update you with a link as soon as we have it. Post your comments here, on the Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest Facebook page and on King 5’s Facebook page as the story airs!
Hey! Tomorrow is the last day of the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale (what a cool concept, right?) You can help Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest by heading to the Tacoma bake sale located at King’s Books, 218 St Helens Ave, Tacoma, WA 98402. Find out more on the Facebook event page, which includes photos of some of the yummy baked goods you can buy. If you want to bake something as well as purchasing baked goods, feel free to drop in with your goodies at the book store tomorrow (Sunday) at noon. In addition to the baked goods, 35 copies of the vegan baked goods recipe book is up for sale. All proceeds support the sanctuary, so indulge!
Speaking of sweetness, if you saw our April e-news last week, you learned a little bit more about beautiful Annie. However, if you’re somewhat new to the sanctuary and the blog, you might not be aware that Annie has a habit of making bird noises (check out the video in the “Annie-isms” blog post from 2010 to hear her chirps). She has a particular technique for producing these sounds that involves holding both hands over her face. She was relaxing in the greenhouse this afternoon making her bird sounds and I snapped a few photos.
Annie involved her feet in the chirping today:
She may have just been having fun with her lips in this photo:
I think she’s generally quite pleased with herself after a good bird call (chimpanzees don’t smile the same way that humans do, but Annie often looks like she has a grin on her face from our human perspective):
Today is day 3 of unseasonably gorgeous weather (high 70s!) here in Cle Elum. The chimpanzees have been out on Young’s Hill for a couple of hours now and show no signs of tiring of it. (As I write this, Jody is lying on her belly in a patch of shade munching on some grass.) Here are some photos from this afternoon:
Foxie has collected several of these wine vines to bring into the greenhouse with her:
Annie brought in a blanket she found on the hill for her nest in the greenhouse:
Burrito has been watching the goings-on from his new favorite hangout by the treat rock:
Today is GORGEOUS! So gorgeous that we set out a party on Young’s Hill complete with new gifts from special friends and fun food. It was an early celebration of Love a Chimpanzee Day (April 23rd), a holiday invented by supporter Monica Best and a day that she sponsors each year.
Jamie passed the food and went right for her new red boots brought by Monica’s friend Sophy. After securing her new red boots, Jamie did manage to get a huge armful of bok choy (not pictured).
Guess what Burrito chose? That’s right – food! Here he is eating cabbage by the treat rock:
Jody first went for the food (she’s eating watermelon in the photo below):
But later she grabbed some clown glasses and a new doll. The photo below is a little blurry because Jody was on the move!
There were three new Dora dolls on the hill, thanks to caregiver Jackie’s thrift store shopping. Foxie quickly gathered them all up:
And later spent some quality time with them:
All in all, it was a delightful early celebration of Love a Chimpanzee Day. Thank you, Monica! And thank you to all supporters who sponsor days and otherwise support the sanctuary.
Today was a special day for me too! Jim, Audrey and Brian worked on the outreach & events stuff shed. Isn’t it beautiful?? I want to move in.
Foxie has received a lot of new troll dolls in the past few days. She’s also been even more playful than her baseline playfulness, which is off the charts. Coincidence?
She was sitting in the window ledge watching Connie and me set up the playroom after cleaning today, so I decided to set her troll dolls out so she could take a look before coming back in the room. Annie joined her for a moment and I saw Annie with one of the troll dolls in her nest tonight.
Please excuse all of the mooning in the photo below
We talk a lot about how Jamie is the boss not only of the Cle Elum Seven chimpanzees, but of the humans at the sanctuary too. People ask us what makes her the boss. I don’t know that I’ve ever explained it quite this way before, but I’d say a good 75% of the “why” behind Jamie’s leadership status is that she just knows she should be in charge. I don’t think there’s any question in her mind that she should have a privileged status among all of us.
This entitlement means that Jamie can be demanding. If she’s trying to get our attention in order for us to give her something, she’ll often stand in the loft of the playroom, look into the kitchen and stomp her feet or hit the caging. Today she did this after lunch. Volunteer caregiver Connie and I were the only humans in the building at the time. Connie did her best to try to figure out what Jamie wanted, bringing her out various favorite things like crayons, big container,s and a couple of pairs of boots.
But the boss was not satisfied.
So, we decided to get ALL of Jamie’s boots (even the extras that were in storage) and line them up outside of the front rooms. It’s something that I had tried over a year ago that worked (see that blog post), and we were out of options. I don’t know if this is exactly what Jamie wanted, but she was definitely pleased with our solution. She would point to certain boots and we would hold them up for her. Some of them she seemed to just want to look at, some she wanted to touch, and others she asked us to give her by standing near the chute with her hand in the position to grab a boot that we dropped in (you can see the rectangular hole and the wire mesh chute below in this photo).
