Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

All Season Burrito

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My phone has been angry at me the past week or so. The memory is near capacity and it sometimes refuses to run some apps. The culprit of the memory consumption? Photos and video. Though I upload them to a cloud drive, I still have them on my phone because you never know when you’re going to need one to send to some one. It’s (personally) tough to purge the photos and video from my phone. As I delete 100, I take 100 more the next day I arrive at work. But, as I try to better myself at deleting things off my phone and trust the cloud drive, I found several videos of Burrito and I running around Young’s Hill over the past year. Watching these over again, I realized something. Every season is running season for Burrito! Please enjoy this montage of him running around Young’s Hill in the various seasons of Washington State.

Here are some bonus photos I took today and yesterday:

Foxie watching the produce delivery this morning from Young’s Hill.

Negra in the Greenhouse while the others venture out on their first patrol of the morning.

Jody foraging for some pine branches and wild roses on Young’s Hill this afternoon.

Jamie with her sweet pepper haul yesterday during Missy’s birthday.

Annie with her sweet potato haul yesterday.

 

Soup of the (Birth)Day

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Today, we celebrated Missy’s 46th birthday with a tomato-themed bash.

Paulette Wrisley made us smile by generously sponsoring this day of sanctuary in Missy’s honor. To make today even more special, our good friend Monica Best also sponsored this day of sanctuary for the same reason! Thank you for thinking of Missy, Paulette and Monica!

As many of you already know, tomatoes are Missy’s favorite food and she gets unashamedly excited about them. In fact, Missy’s love of tomatoes has single-handedly convinced the aforementioned Monica to give these odd fruits another chance (with some success).

Keeping this in mind, Enrichment Coordinator Chad created a chimp-friendly menu of fresh produce centered around whole beefsteak tomatoes. The meal even had an appetizer: a zesty gazpacho-like soup consisting of red bell peppers, celery, coconut milk, garlic, sweet onions, and tomatoes.

All three groups of chimpanzees enjoyed their own parties with the same menu, and the soup was an unexpected hit with some individuals while others ran around gathering sweet peppers and tomatoes. Of course, Missy seemed to have the best day of all. She zoomed around the Greenhouse and Young’s Hill, scarfing down dozens of treats and devouring several large beefsteak tomatoes on her own.

Chad took the following photos and I asked him if I could include them in today’s post! Even if Chad had said “no,” I would have stolen the images from him and taken credit anyway.

Negra
Missy
Burrito
Foxie
Burrito (doing his best impersonation of Missy)

We’re so lucky to have such amazing supporters who make days like today possible, and we can’t possibly express our full appreciation for Paulette, Monica, and everyone else. Thanks you all for loving Missy and her companions as much as we do!

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P.S. I wanted to title this blog post Soups!… I Did It Again but I did some research and that pun is already in use. Apparently, there’s a Wisconsin company using that name for their brand. They actually make soups. I’ve been bested at my own game. Soups.

Play is good for the soul

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Make sure your volume is up for this video! There’s lots of chimp laughter and breathy pants to go around. Nothing like watching chimps in a good play session! Today there was lots of play happening among The Lucky Six. Any time I would walk by their group this morning there would be different chimps playing. This video highlights Cy and Dora playing, but I also saw Dora playing with Lucky then Rayne, and Gordo playing with Rayne! This warms my heart because recently we have been finding The Lucky Six playing with each other a lot more. Happy chimps = happy caregivers.

 

Enjoy some bonus photos from today!

Annie waiting for Missy so they can explore Young’s Hill.

Sweet Lucky.

The handsome Cy.

Dora and Rayne playing.

Rayne’s play face!

 

 

Burrito is the light in all of our lives

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You’ve probably seen a video just like this in the past if you’ve been following the blog for a bit, but playing with Burrito never gets old. Head nod along as you watch the video above!

 

Bonus photo of Mave:

 

Drowsy Thursday

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Yesterday we concluded the first round of one on one introductions so today we took another break from all the afternoon action. We have a flexible plan for slowly moving forward with introductions, focusing on who needs more time together in one on one situations and who can meet together in slightly larger two on two intros.  As we’ve hopefully expressed before, intros are exciting but stressful for the chimps as well as the caregivers. It was nice to take a moment to breath and think about other projects that need to be worked on around here.

For Dora, Rayne and Negra, napping was at the top of their to do list this afternoon.  Just try not to be too jealous as you look at these photos.

Dora:

Negra:

Rayne’s descent into snoozeville :

 

Two Years with the Amazing Three!

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Today is Honey B, Willy B, and Mave’s two year anniversary at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest! It has been an honor to get to know each one of them. I can’t imagine life without Honey B’s spunk, Willy B’s dashing good looks, or life without a laid back Mave would just be disappointing. The day was full of their favorite foods and enrichment. There were mangoes, avocados, eggplant to name a few! We put out a LOT of paper, raffle tickets, and buckets of soapy water!

While it’s their anniversary we were still doing one on one introductions. Today was actually the last day of one on one’s before we take a little break. As Sofia stated yesterday, Honey B with no surprise is a wild card and so is Gordo. Honey B still had to meet Gordo and Cy. We also knew these might be some of our hardest introductions. I just need to state how proud we are of Honey B! She did really well overall! It shows us that Honey B can form relationships with new chimps and gives us hope for the future. But she still makes us hold our breath when we open up that door.

First up was Cy. They did great! Cy was playing with her so rough, we were all really for Honey B to freak out, but she didn’t. She loved playing with Cy! As you will see in the video they are laughing and wrestling. That was them playing gently too, we didn’t capture the true wrestling because we thought it might escalate, but to our pleasant surprise it didn’t! Next up was Gordo. Honey B and Gordo met at the mesh yesterday and seemed pretty playful. However, today they both seemed to have taken a slower approach. Eventually we opened the door and they seemed a bit indifferent. Indifference was totally fine, we just wanted them to get comfortable. They warmed up to each other and started to play. It was really fun to watch, but it was short lived. We think there was a little miscommunication on both ends and we quickly ended up having to separate them. Gordo is fine and has a small wound on his foot. We brought Honey B back so her and Gordo had a chance to make up at the mesh, but Gordo wasn’t too interested in coming down. Honey B did give him some good positive behaviors at the mesh. We are hopeful that they can move past this and with a few more meetings understand each other a little bit better. Miscommunications with chimps happens a lot. Foxie and Annie had a lot in the beginning too and even some times to this day!

As an update we are taking a small break because everyone has met everyone for our one on one introductions. We will be doing one on ones occasionally and we will be working on two on two soon as well. For now, us humans and chimps are going to get a few good nights of sleep! Overall, the intros so far have gone as well as we could have asked. I just want to say this again because I think Honey B deserves this. She exceeded our expectations and to watch Honey B play with Cy, Dora, Rayne, and Lucky is exactly why we are doing this. Honey B was so expressive, so happy, and she is a chimp that deserves to have more socialization with other chimps! This proved that, but that doesn’t mean this road is easy or even guarantees this will work out.

Let us all cheers to one on one introductions being over and two incredible years with Honey B, Willy B, and Mave!

Gordo and Honey B. This was right before Honey B came over to Gordo and tried to give him a reassuring kiss!

Cy and Honey B wrestling!

Mave enjoying her whole mango! Mave was so excited, her food squeaks were unreal!

The Rayne Attraction

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Last week, I introduced you all to… uh… well… introductions.

You can read that blog post here if you need to catch up. Since then, we’ve posted the following updates related to social integrations: Chad’s Today’s Forecast: Rayne, Kelsi’s Exhilarating Day, J.B.’s Ups and Downs, Diana’s Play During Intros, and Sam’s The Introductions Continue!

Well, today was another exciting day…

Rayne met Willy B in a controlled introduction session!

Willy B
Rayne

They took a few minutes to warm up to each other, but they both behaved in a friendly and respectful manner. Eventually, they “broke the ice” and began to playfully stomp around and wrestle. It’s remarkable how two chimps who have never been together before can suddenly decide to inundate each other with goofy gestures of affection. Their exuberant facial expressions and thunderous chuckles lit up the indoor area where their meeting was staged.

We’ve learned that Willy B has a tendency to start introduction sessions with enthusiasm but quickly grows bored. In today’s meeting, the opposite happened; Willy wanted to keep playing but Rayne eventually grew tired and began to watch the humans expectantly.

Rayne and Willy B amicably separated shortly before dinner and voluntarily returned to their respective social groups in the new playrooms and greenhouse enclosures.

Tomorrow, we hope to continue the integration process by facilitating more introductions!