Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

And then there were 9

by

This morning Kelsi opened the last door and officially fully merged Willy B with Cy’s groups into a single group of 9. While we can’t say for sure that this is the final product of all of our intro efforts, we remain cautiously optimistic. There is plenty of socialization work left to be done. For now though, we celebrate this momentous occasion.

The new big group (Honey B not pictured):

It might be hard to see, but there are 9 chimpanzees in this photo taken of our video surveillance tv!!

Cy and Willy B:

 

 

Busy Chimp House Day!

by

As Chad wrote on Sunday, this week has already proven to be busy for the entire chimp house. I think today’s blog is all about Burrito!


As an intro update, so far so good!

Mave and Terry grooming:

Cy and Willy B grooming:

Lucky:

A Glass Hoof Full

by

Chad wrote yesterday about our ambitious plans for this week which will likely impact the blog in the coming days. This afternoon’s post is just a brief update on the sanctuary’s bovine residents.

Every year, the hoof trimmer swings by to give the cattle their spring “pedicures.” Bovine hooves grow continuously like human fingernails and a trained professional must trim them on an annual basis to minimize the risk of injury and disease. Dr. Erin and Sofia also take the opportunity to administer their annual vaccinations. Ideally, we try to schedule this trimming before the cattle rotate out to pasture for the summer and become even more difficult to corral in the lower paddock.

Yesterday, our friend Gates brought his specialized equipment to the sanctuary with the intent of getting all the cattle taken care of in one brief visit. Meredith bravely entered the chute first and got her hooves cleaned and trimmed, then Honey followed without issue. Nutmeg proved to be more difficult; the massive steer has actually grown too tall and wide for the hydraulic device that Gates uses to safely restrain the cattle. Betsy also missed her appointment after declining to get into the pen altogether. Because of these challenges, we’ll have to schedule a follow-up visit once we’ve made some adjustments to our setup.

Meredith waits in the squeeze after getting her hooves trimmed
Nutmeg waits for his appointment with the trimmer

Importantly, all of the cattle look just as healthy- if not healthier- than when they arrived (which isn’t bad for a bunch of reality TV stars from California). Evidently, life in the mountains has been quite good for them, and we’re happy to have them mowing the sanctuary lawn.

After the hoof trim event, the crew took a walk around the property to discuss our fencing and grazing plan for this year. It was exciting to see the more secluded areas where the cattle will be spending their summer!

J.B., Erin, Diana and Sofia walk through the upper pasture

 

Please Excuse the Interruption

by

To our supportive blog followers and lovers of the sanctuary:

We are always ever so grateful for all the love and support you have given us throughout the years and want to thank you for following along and interacting with us through the blog. As you all know, we have been in the process of integrating Cy’s group and Willy B’s group over the past several months. Our friend and colleague, Jen Feuerstein, will return tomorrow to help us with progressing even further into the integration process this week. During this time, we are going to be extremely busy monitoring the process as the chimpanzees come together and work on their relationships with one another. We will still be posting the daily blog, but please forgive us if at times this week it seems it is abbreviated or posted a little later in the day. We hope you understand. We will be back on a regular schedule soon!

As we prepare for the week ahead, please enjoy these photos from today!

Willy B:

Honey B:

Mave:

Cy:

Lucky:

Gordo:

Dora:

Rayne:

Terry:

Love a Chimpanzee Day 2022

by

Today was a Love a Chimpanzee Day for the books! Not only did Monica continue her tradition of generosity by paying for party supplies (including a bunch of stuff like scarves and giant stuffed animals that are not pictured here, but the Primate Awareness Network at Central Washington University also got involved and planned the party! It was bug themed and the food for the day included bugs on a log (celery with peanut butter and berries), whole sweet potatoes, watermelon radishes, kale, bok choy, and Swiss chard.

We didn’t get a lot of photos of all of the elements of the parties because the chimpanzees were a blur of excitement, but Kelsi and Anna got some great photos of the chimpanzees. There were so many, I had a difficult time selecting only a few.

Thank you to those who have already donated on my and Monica’s GiveBIG fundraising page in celebration of Love a Chimpanzee Day. Monica’s matching donation is live, so your donations will be doubled.

Huge hugs of thanks to Monica, and Happy Love a Chimpanzee Day to everyone!

 

Gordo enjoying Swiss Chard:

 

Terry enjoying bok choy:

 

 

Beautiful Rayne:

 

Some set-up shots of creative party elements that the Primate Awarness Network made for the chimps:

 

Negra digging into a box and later eating some greens on the hill:

 

 

Willy B with the big party banner:

 

Missy slack-lining and carrying sweet potatoes:

 

Burrito with a watermelon radish and bok choy then “hanging out”:

 

Annie with some kale:

 

Jamie was the first on the hill and collected as much bok choy as she could:

 

A goodnight photo of Mave grooming Honey B while Honey B was in her nest:

Earth Day, Today and Everyday

by

Today is Earth Day- a day to think about our impact on the earth, to learn how to live more sustainably, and to celebrate conservation and preservation of the environment.

Here at the sanctuary we work to be as sustainable as possible, with an active recycling program and food compost station (just to name a few). It’s hard, though, to not think about greater conservation issues when you spend your days working with a species that is currently classified as endangered by the IUCN, with wild populations of chimpanzees decreasing. I often find myself too overwhelmed to think about it, with the issue being so large and complex, but to honor the day it does seem appropriate to think about little things we can do to become more environmentally friendly in our everyday lives. My goal is to prioritize local and seasonal eating, along with learning how to compost our food scraps. What’s yours?

The chimpanzees got to celebrate Earth Day today as well, as it was another perfect day for a forage on Young’s Hill! Everyone seems to be enjoying the sunshine today – and what better way is there to appreciate Mother Earth?

Annie enjoying her forage, a thread:

 

Lucky basking in the sunshine of the Oakwood Greenhouse:

Jody enjoying some after-lunch yoga in the Greenhouse. Happy baby, anyone?

Happy Earth Day!

Appreciation during still uncertain times

by

This week is National Volunteer Appreciation week and I’m finding that there are not enough words to express how much our volunteers mean to us.

As the pandemic hit in March of 2020, we made the extremely tough decision to limit the numbers of humans that we had coming to the sanctuary in order to help protect the chimpanzees. This meant we had to lay off the bulk of our extremely valuable volunteer and intern workforce. While only a few volunteers were able to adapt to our strict protocols and qualifications, others found different ways to help at a distance. They filled bags of primate chow from home,collected enrichment and helped plan fundraising events. Their creativity and resourcefulness has been astounding!

Now, 2 years later, we are still working with a limited (although slightly larger) group of volunteers. Our COVID protocols have adjusted over time, but our resources (high quality masks and rapid tests) remain limited, so we currently have an active group of only 6 volunteer caregivers. While there are still many of our loving volunteers on hiatus through no fault of their own, we wanted to specifically recognize the very hard work and dedication of our current “Level 3” caregivers.

Please join me in thanking Patti, Lisa, Elizabeth, Keri, Lizz and Krissy for all their hard work during this ongoing pandemic. We seriously couldn’t have done it without you and we can’t wait for the day when we can welcome more volunteers back to the sanctuary!

Besides hard working, our volunteers can also be elusive to photograph, so we have a mixture of old and new photos of them.

Patti cleaning the front rooms:

Lisa and Foxie:

A 2015 throwback photo of Keri and Jamie:

Elizabeth and Honey B:

Krissy disinfecting the front rooms:

Lizz grooming Jamie: