Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

chimpanzee rescue

If Looks Could Kale

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Jody has a healthy appreciation for fresh, hand-picked greens.

Recently, local volunteer Krissy has been delivering bags of primate chow to the sanctuary’s front gate. More often than not, she also leaves behind a large bin of produce from her home garden. This weekend, we added the generous assortment of leafy greens to the chimps’ lunches, which we then dispersed in Young’s Hill so that they could spend the afternoon foraging.

Most greens are cultivars of one species: cabbage. In its wild form, cabbage (Brassica oleracea) grows on the seaside cliffs of Europe. Over millennia, the domesticated variants have become a common food crop for humans around the globe. Despite their distinct grocery names, kale, collared greens, cauliflower, broccoli, kohlrabi, and Brussels sprouts are all just types of cabbage that have been shaped by artificial selection. Of course, “Farmer Jo” loves them all equally.

Today, Jo did her usual thing (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6) and gathered up an impressive bundle of greens. Although it was an unusually quiet day at the sanctuary, even around the chimps, the loud crunch of woody stems filled the Greenhouse for a short while. Negra spent the early minutes of the forage collecting the grapes and chow biscuits nearest to the Greenhouse, but missed out on the kale. Upon returning, she sat behind Jody and begged for a piece. Jo ignored her, but eventually discarded enough leafless stalks to satisfy Neggie, who promptly scooped them up and waddled inside.

Compared to the usual dynamics, today’s drama was relatively tame.

The Bounties of Sanctuary

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First, the news you’ve been waiting for: Burrito is back with his group! It’s been two weeks to the day since his encounter with the rattlesnake.

I’m going to be completely honest here. I thought we were going to lose him the day that he was bitten. I also thought we were going to lose him those many months ago when the big conflict that ended our attempts at integrating the groups occurred.

I’m not the most optimistic of people, so take that into consideration (I can picture J.B. giving me a look that says, “you don’t say?!”).

Burrito, however, seems to be an optimist with an incredible will to live. That, combined with an amazing staff and quick-acting veterinarian in Dr. Erin, who has a whole network of medical professionals on speed dial (a particularly grateful shout-out to anesthetist Dalila Fairchild), gave me hope.

What was truly heartwarming, however, was the immediate outpouring of support you all showed, which carried over into last week’s HOOT! virtual event. I really just can’t get over it. THANK YOU!!! You all remind me that there are good, no, not just good, but great people in this world who truly care and take action when needed. It was the bounty of love, even more than the financial contributions, that was so moving.

Anyway, enough of my yammering, here are some awesome photos of the day, most of them taken by Anna and J.B

First order of business for Burrito on the hill: approach Jody for some reassurance:

which she deftly provided, even while managing a bounty of cabbage leaves (thanks, Krissy!)

Burrito decided to stick close to Jody for a bit:

Then he ventured towards Negra, who gave him a reassuring extended arm gesture:

Negra’s bounty was kale:

Appropriately reassured, Burrito settled into foraging on his own:

 

 

Later in the day, it was time for the other group to have access to the Courtyard. To carry the theme of this blog post, I noticed that there was a bounty of grapes hidden under the grape vines on that side of the building.

Here’s a photo of the vines with Honey B at the top of the chute in the background:

Here’s what I picked in just 20 minutes:

Willy B was watching my activity from the Courtyard, so of course grapes were on the menu as part of dinner:

I hope you experienced a bounty of something good this past week too.

An Apple A Day Keeps The Smoke Away

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As you may know, the entire West Coast of the United States is covered in smoke. But today, there was some reprieve. If I were a person who believed adages, I think it would be the one with apples. As the saying goes,” An apple a day keeps the smoke away,” or something to the like.

Regardless, the sky was clearer today than it has been the past few. So much so, the chimpanzees were able to enjoy a considerable amount of time outside.

Foxie took her morning serving of apples to go and enjoy the outdoors.

Missy also took her breakfast to go. But before she made her rounds around Young’s Hill, she had to try to take a peek at her neighbors.

Later on during the day, Foxie took Strawberry Shortcake and Orange Blossom for a walk around the Hill.

I couldn’t decide which photo to include, so I’m just going to include both.

Afterward, she decided it was a good time for a nap.

Burrito also had his apples for the day. For lunch, he was given an apple, which he became really excited about.

Burrito still continues to recover from his incident. His enthusiasm and energy could deceive anybody that anything had ever happened to him. We are hoping the day comes soon when he will be reunited with his family.

This next photo I just wanted to share for the sake of sharing it. I took it on Sunday. Willy B and Mave were over the smoke and construction. So we decided to give them one of their favorite enrichment items.

Firehose Cubes!

I probably have blabbered on long enough. As I was closing up the different areas of the Chimp House, I found Mave like this two minutes ago.

She’s more than likely waiting for me to turn off the lights and lock the doors so she can get some sleep. So I will oblige and let her and everyone else get some sleep.

Good night, everybody!

Happy Birthday, Tina!

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Tina Dilts sponsored a day of sanctuary for the chimpanzees as a way to celebrate her birthday!

“I could not think of a better way to celebrate my birthday than pant-hooting and blowing raspberries with the Cle Elum gang!”

Happy Birthday, Tina! Thank you so much for thinking of the chimpanzees and generously sharing your own special day with them! We definitely recommend pant-hooting to celebrate and blowing raspberries to get everything you want. And you can always throw in Negra’s patented hand-claps for a little something extra! 🙂 We hope you have a wonderful day!

Burrito:

Annie blowing raspberries:

Negra:

Honey B:

See you soon at HOOT!

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It’s a very smoky day at the sanctuary. We are thinking of all of those impacted by the fires all over the northwest right now.

We are thankful for so much, including Burrito’s continued recovery. Today he got to spend some time with Jody!

We are also extremely thankful for you, the generous and caring supporters of the sanctuary.

We hope you will ALL join us, even if you are not in a position right now to donate or bid on items, for the Virtual HOOT! gala tonight, starting in just a few hours at 6:00pm PT.

Anyone can watch, either on Facebook or on the auction home page.

If you signed up for the Happy Hour, you’ll be seeing the chimpanzees in real time very soon as they have their non-alcoholic version of the pant-hootch specialty drink.

Cheers to you and cheers to hope for the future!

hoot logo

Relaxation, Recreation, Recovery

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There seemed to be a different theme to various parts of the Chimp House today. Depending on what area you happened to find yourself in, you either found chimpanzee people relaxing and taking in the nicer weather we’ve had today, thrilled with a new enrichment item, or recovering from a recent injury.

For the Girl Gang, today was all about Relaxation!

Though Foxie was playing with Orange Blossom and Blueberry Muffin, it was such a relaxing play session.

Jamie also spent most of the day relaxing, though always prepared to lift herself up if there was some supervising to do around the property.

Jody decided to spend most of the day as close to Burrito as she could. She even decided to nap in the room adjacent to his to ensure optimal closeness.

On the other side of the building, today was about Recreation!

Willy B, Honey B, and Mave received Boomer Balls as an afternoon enrichment puzzle.

Right after they finished their lunch, we brought the Boomer Balls out and showed them. They became really excited! Especially Mave! When Mave saw the basket which contained this puzzle inside, she stopped what she was doing and raced for the door. She waited patiently as we set up the Mezzanine. Once we gave her access, she bolted in and immediately claimed hers.

Any time Honey B or Willy B came even remotely close to her and her prizes, she would gather her things up, and move to a new location.

When Willy B finished his puzzle, he set off to search the entire Mezzanine for any potential missed food. Though he seemed as though he wished a magician appeared to alakazam him some more nuts, he in turn looked like a magician himself.

Finally, Recovery!

Burrito is still recovering from his difficult day.

To help lift his spirits, caregiver Kelsi brought him a whole pomegranate.

The rest of the day, Burrito was slowly becoming more like his old self again. While in his recovery room, he let out a mini-display and then demanded to be let into the other front room. We obliged with his demands since we needed to get into the room he was in to clean it. Once in that room, it was playtime for him.

Before that though, we had to get some medicine in. As shared on Facebook and Instagram, Burrito has been taking his medication in little grape juice bottles, usually with the use of a straw. He decided which straw he wants to use, usually a regular paper straw or one of the long plastic tubes. Today, the choice was mostly the long plastic tube. Initially he grabbed the straw to play tug-o-war and had no interest in taking his medication! So I made a deal with him. If he drank his medicine, we would play! After every sip was gone, he grabbed the tube and passed the end to me for tug-o-war.

When he was tired of the tube, the game still continued, but this time with a blanket.

We are all cautiously optimistic about Burrito’s recovery. The more and more we research the venom and some of the long lasting effects it can leave, the more we realize we are still not out of the woods yet in his recovery. We are, however, completely enthralled by Burrito’s resiliency. We are also completely over the moon at the amount of support Burrito has received from around the world. We have received messages far and wide on how people could help Burrito. Yesterday, we added a special page to our Virtual Hoot! 2020 site specifically to help the costs of Burrito’s recovery. We cannot thank each and everyone of you enough for all your kind words, donations, and support. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you!

Happy Birthday, Mykel and Steph!

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Kathleen Zasimovich sponsored a day of sanctuary for the chimpanzees in honor of two special humans and sends this message:

“Happy Birthday Mykel and Steph. The chimpanzees will celebrate with you. Aunt Kathy.”

Thank you for including the chimpanzees in your family’s day of celebration for Mykel and Steph, Kathleen!

Happy Birthday, Mykel and Steph! All of us here at the sanctuary hope your day is filled with everything that brings you happiness, just as you’ve helped do for the chimpanzees by sharing your special day with them.

Foxie:

Jamie and Foxie:

Burrito:

Honey B and Mave: