Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

chimpanzee sanctuary

Happy Birthday, Kathy!

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Today’s day of sanctuary was sponsored by Caroline Hero in honor of her sister, Kathy Hero! Caroline shared this incredibly touching message about today:

“This day is in honour of my sister Kathy (Hero) who was born on this day, June 28, let’s just say, a number of years ago. Ever since she saw Jane Goodall on the cover of National Geographic for the first time she was hooked on Chimpanzees for life. So in her honour I would like to sponsor a day for your troop of extraordinary rescues to make her Birthday this year an extra special one indeed. She follows the Cle Elum Seven on a daily basis and loves them all, and what your team is doing to give them a better life. My sisters and I care for our Mother, who suffers from dementia, and this day will truly brighten her dwindling spirit. One day I hope to be able to afford a trip for us down there to see the Sanctuary and the lives you have enriched. Happy Birthday to you dear sister, and I love you very much.”

Caroline, we are so moved by your generous and compassionate gift for Kathy and the chimpanzees. Thank you for thinking of the chimpanzees as you and your family celebrate Kathy today!

Kathy, may your special day fill your heart with the lightness and joy, comfort and ease, that you help provide the chimpanzees’ hearts with. Happiest of birthdays from all of the primates here at the sanctuary!

Jamie:

Another busy day (for the humans)

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It’s been another extra busy day in the chimp house for the humans with unexpected occurrences and cleaning to navigate in addition to the usual. Which of course still means the usual for the chimpanzees: doing whatever strikes their fancy every moment of the day. Just as it should be.

Jody and Annie spent the afternoon luxuriating in the greenhouse, grooming one another:

And if you’re Foxie, it’s just looking fabulous because you were born that way:

Here’s a bonus short story about Jamie and her never-ending ability to amaze us. We were in the midst of cleaning the playroom this morning when Jamie got my attention and had me follow her (immediately!) to the frontroom that the trash can sits across from. She immediately climbed up onto the food chute and frantically gestured for me to show her the trash contents. Well, this was new! But it didn’t take long for me to realize that some of her valued reading material had mistakenly (per Jamie) been throw away during cleaning. So I found myself dumpster diving for Jamie. Rifling through a can full of papers to see what she might be thinking of, holding up each page and getting her nod of approval or her gesture to keep looking. In the end, we found what she’d been missing: two magazine pages of cowboy boots and *GASP*, her beloved Dwell magazine! Whew! Crisis averted. I adore her.

Happy Solstice!

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Dylan Most sponsored this beautiful day in celebration of the summer solstice (or winter as the case may be 🙂 )!

Dylan, thank you so much for helping the chimpanzees welcome this lovely time of year at the sanctuary! We love these glorious days of chimpanzees hidden in the wilds of Young’s Hill amid the tall, green grass, afternoons spent lounging in the sun-filled greenhouse and air filled with birdsong and flowers.

Whether your summer or winter, we hope all of you enjoy the particular beauty found in the season just as you make possible for the chimpanzees:

Negra:

Annie:

Mr. and Ms. Bluebird:

Foxie:

Jody:

Burrito:

Missy:

Video: A Day in the Life

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We were really busy last week preparing for our big event in Seattle. HOOT! 2019 was a great success, due to the staff and volunteers who put in hours and hours over the last year preparing and planning, plus the staff and volunteers who gave it their all at the event on Saturday.

But the gala is just a small part of what they do. This video is a look at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest that provides a glimpse into all that goes into a day of sanctuary.

We’re sorry we were so busy last week to not give #SanctuaryCaregiverDay its due. The sanctuary would be NOTHING without paid and volunteer caregivers. So, please watch this video and thank them for all of their hard work. We appreciate them so much!

Organizing!

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As the chimps lounged around…

The humans did some organizing! We’ve got just a couple of months to get ready for the arrival of our newest sanctuary members. If you haven’t heard the BIG news yet, make sure to check out this blog post!

We recently received a new fridge from a generous donor/volunteer. Getting a new fridge in the building is always a challenge, luckily we have lots of willing volunteers to lend a hand or two.

The second fridge took its place in the kitchen across from the other fridge. We will have some more mouths to feed here pretty soon!

And the enrichment moved out of the kitchen and into our new laundry/enrichment room!

The only thing we’re missing in this space is a new washer/dryer for our second group of chimps… If you’re interested in becoming our washer/dryer donor angel, you can find the set we are looking for on our Amazon Wishlist.

Beauty of Sanctuary

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As a caregiver, especially if you are the one in charge of the schedule it is crucial to try to keep to it, but it’s also important to remember things don’t always go as planned. You learn to be flexible. That is kind of the beauty of a sanctuary. For example, I couldn’t get all the chimps to shift how I would have planned today. Missy stayed in the playroom, the rest of the chimps were in a front room or out in the Green House for breakfast, so I couldn’t close anything off to clean. You might see my dilemma, eventually it all worked out. However, the chimps got to make their own choice and when you think about that, it’s pretty awesome.

A few pictures of Jody looking radiant in the Green House:

Negra napping with a little smirk:

Foxie and those little toes:

Memories for Monday

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Every now and then I like to look back and see what life was like at the sanctuary on this same day in CSNW history.

On June 17th in 2008, the chimpanzees had just arrived in their new home in Cle Elum. Diana took this haunting photo of Jody that we can now compare to this photo of her today. What a difference sanctuary life has made!

On June 17th in 2009, Diana shared a couple stories about Foxie and how her life had changed after one year in sanctuary.

On June 17th in 2010, big beautiful nests were all the rage!

On June 17th in 2011, JB and volunteers were in the throes of building Young’s Hill.

On June 17th in 2012, Burrito played a silly game (some things never change).

On June 17th in 2013, we mentioned our Amazon wishlist. This list is still up and running and today it includes some exciting new items such as our washer and dryer that we are going to need in our expansion!

On June 17th in 2014, Missy got a good view from the top of the hill!

On June 17th in 2015, Katelyn wrote about a private moment of friendship between Foxie and Burrito.

On June 17th in 2016, JB took us for a trip down Memory Lane.

On June 17th in 2017, it was a perfectly ordinary day 🙂

And last year on June 17th, we threw the chimps a slightly belated 10 year Anniversary party!

We can’t wait to see what will come our way next year!