Okay, okay — I know I just posted a bunch of Foxie photos yesterday, but this video was just too much fun to not post. So, here she is, the nearly 38 year old chimp who is going on six. 🙂
Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Foxie with a new troll and outreach updates
If you are active on our Facebook pages and like to see updates about the chimps there—I have some important news! We have decided to share more photos of the chimps on our main page and close down the individual chimp pages, so it’s all in one place and more people will get to see stories about the Cle Elum Seven. We have made dedicated photo albums of each chimp and will be transferring photos from their individual pages to these albums this week.
We’re also going to participate in the social media challenge of 100 Happy Days. The idea is that for 100 days in a row, we will post a picture of something that represents happiness for the sanctuary. Really, every day is a happy day in sanctuary, so this shouldn’t be too hard! We will use the hashtag #100HappyDays so that any other person participating in the challenge will see our posts, too. I think it will be a lot of fun and I hope you all will enjoy it. We will do the majority of the posts on our Instagram and Pinterest pages, but will post them to our Facebook page as well once a week. Even if you don’t use those social media sites, you can still view the photos!
As a side, we are SO close to reaching 10,000 likes. How awesome would it be to reach that goal? Anytime you like, comment, or share a post from our page you help to get more friends for the sanctuary, and we can always use more friends! I’m making it a personal goal to reach 10,000 likes by the end of the 100 Happy Days. Even if it means I have to hunt down another 300 friends just to make it! But something tells me that with all our wonderful and caring supporters, it won’t be too hard to get you all to share some of our posts and encourage yours friends to like the page.
Anyway, on to the most important part of this post—Foxie with a new troll! 🙂
A relaxing morning walk
We have written quite a lot about Jamie chimpanzee’s Young’s Hill walks and accompanied the descriptions with many, many pictures. It really is one of the best experiences of working at Chimpanzee Sanctuary NW and one of my favorite activities to share with Jamie. Today I would like to invite you to join Jamie on her walk around the hill. The video doesn’t do the actual experience justice but I did what I could to try to capture the idea. Hope you enjoy your walk around the hill!
Annie and Missy: Now and Then
While staff and volunteers were cleaning the greenhouse before breakfast this morning, Annie and Missy bided their time with a little wrestling.
And just because, here’s one of my favorite classic Annie and Missy play sessions from about five years ago.
Here’s to another five years of play faces and breathy laughter.
Friendships
It’s Friend Friday! Okay, well, we may have made that up last week—but it turns out that it actually is a thing! So, we thought we’d keep the trend going and post about some friendships today.
This morning I got a video of rambunctious play between Foxie, Diana, and Burrito. At one point, Burrito turned toward Foxie and they started to play with each other. This is really important for their bonding, and we as caregivers tend to take a step back and let them play on their own. You’ll see in the video that Diana did just that. Later on, Jody joined in too, and started to play tug with Foxie. Foxie looked toward Diana to keep playing with her, but Jody was so insistent that Foxie play with her that Diana encouraged Foxie to direct her attention back to Jody.
This is a little bit longer than the videos I usually post, but the whole thing was so great I had a hard time cutting anything out. Enjoy, and please share on social media with the hashtag #FriendFriday!
Photos from today and Negra’s Journey
Check out this post on One Green Planet we posted today about Negra. It’s truly a wonderful story and we’d love it if you would share it on social media, or just forward the link to your friends!
Here’s some pictures I took today — the weather is absolutely gorgeous so we set up a quick lunch forage for the chimps to enjoy!
Foxie:
Burrito:
Jamie checking out some welding work J.B. was doing down at the caregiver house:
And then she took her pile inside to enjoy and let me snap this nice head shot of her:
A spring walk with Jamie
Today is a beautiful spring day here at the sanctuary and the chimpanzees have been enjoying a relaxing day in the warm spring breezes. Jamie was ready for a walk around Young’s Hill after lunch and after donning the Jamie-approved cowgirl boot, we set off. Everyone (with the exception of Negra who chose to enjoy the warm spring breeze from her nest in the sun) came out to spend time exploring. But Jamie and I decided to meander, stopping to check things out and wait for each other along the way.
This is not usually the case when walking with Jamie. She has a sense of purpose to everything she does and Jamie, being Jamie, typically determines the course and speed of the walk. She isn’t one to wait around for her caregivers (or the other chimpanzees) and does not appreciate any of us making up the route or getting ahead of her. But this spring day, with so much in bloom, she tolerated a little exploring on both our parts.
Once back inside, I found Jamie nesting in front of the barn doors, surrounded by her magazines and enjoying the warm breeze through the playroom.
She stayed like this for a long time, just gazing outside and enjoying the view into the chimpanzees’ garden. It was a rare treat to see her so relaxed and at peace.
She didn’t even mind the paparazzi.
We hope you are all enjoying equally beautiful and relaxing spring days, wherever you are!
