chimpanzee sanctuary

Today’s gifts of sanctuary

December 25, 2014 by Katelyn

This Christmas Day, we are thrilled to say, has been sponsored by so many amazingly generous people! FIVE to be exact!

Laurel Hecht has graciously chosen to make the lives of the chimpanzees better by sponsoring today, which also happens to be her birthday! We all wish the happiest of birthdays to you, Laurel, and thank you so much for your gift of sharing such a special day with the chimpanzees!

Kathleen Kemper sponsored today for Joanna Gabriel to wish her “Merry Christmas!” Kathleen shared that “Joanna has a deep love for the chimpanzees, and great admiration for their caregivers. She is so grateful that the chimps are living out their lives in such comfort after all they have been through.” Kathleen and Joanna, we are grateful for your kind words and all that you do to help the chimpanzees have the lives they deserve.

Molly Wiltshire sponsored today and shared this lovely note: “God bless you, the chimps, and the sanctuary.”

Michael Hamilton sponsored today in honor of Lucinda Almy-Hamilton and wishes her “Happy Christmas!”

And Janine Burr also sponsored today for which we are so very grateful!

We are humbled, inspired, and full of gratitude every single day by the generosity and compassion that exists in people. To each of you who sponsored this Christmas Day of sanctuary for the chimpanzees, we are immensely thankful to you for making a difference in their lives. From all of us here at CSNW, we wish you holidays filled with love, joy, peace, and comfort!

And thank so much to all of you who have helped us toward our wish for 50 new Sponsor-a-Days for 2015 – we are only 8 days away from reaching our goal! It’s such a wonderful way to honor or remember friends and loved ones, or even yourself. If you haven’t already done so, please consider heading over to our Holiday Central page to check out all the ways you can help the chimpanzees while celebrating this special season.

Please know that we are so very grateful to each and every one of you for all you do, in so many ways, to ensure that every day is a day of sanctuary for these seven amazing beings.

The Christmas festivities are getting underway so be sure to check back later today and celebrate with us!

A Season of gratitude (and parties!)

December 24, 2014 by Katelyn

The chimpanzees (and humans!) of Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest have the best friends and neighbors! People far and wide love these chimpanzees and do so many amazing things to ensure their well-being and the forever home they deserve. It’s an honor and a gift to witness this every single day and we are immensely grateful.

The sanctuary is located a few miles outside the small, eastern Washington town of Cle Elum. This year our local Umpqua Bank sponsored a Giving Tree for the chimpanzees and ARRF Animal Rescue! The bank staff including Jamie, Patti, Brenda, Danielle, and Seka put so much time and effort into organizing this, from creating ornaments for each of the chimpanzees listing chosen gifts on the back to spreading the word about the sanctuary:

And did our local friends and neighbors ever come through!

So if you know us and the chimpanzees, you know we had to start celebrating the holidays with a Christmas Eve party! All of the chimpanzees were enjoying time in the greenhouse this morning, unaware of the party preparation, except for the ever clever Jamie. She knew something was going on and even skipped her usual mid-morning nap, choosing instead to supervise things while playing upside-down-Jamie-on-a-barrel, which in caregiver lingo translates to “Jamie’s happy!”

Caregiver Debbie graciously served as our Christmas Eve elf extraordinaire and made the chimpanzees hot cocoa (with almond milk and unsweetened cocoa powder), put our snow cone machine in overdrive (since we are still waiting on our winter snow here), and prepped the party decor (thanks to Jayne R. and Lisa S.!). Here are volunteer caregiver, Lizz, and our elf, Debbie, setting up (and yes, we have as much, if not more fun, than the chimpanzees!):

No holiday party is complete without the holiday trolls:

Burrito was the first one into the play room where he decided to enjoy the cocoa with the trolls:

This giant present held a new pair of boots for Jamie:

Annie opening party favors filled with peanuts:

Missy enjoying snow cones in a Santa boot mug:

Jody foraging through her stash of holiday treats:

Jamie, of course, had collected numerous cups of cocoa to enjoy:

(Unfortunately, no photographic evidence exists of this, but Foxie and one of the holiday trolls spent their time slurping up snow cones and Negra took her stash to enjoy in the comfort of her nest).

Cle Elum friends and neighbors, we can’t thank you enough for welcoming the chimpanzees into your neighborhood and for your generosity and compassion, not only on this holiday, but all year long. We are truly thankful for your support! And thanks again to Gary and Jan Scott for sponsoring today in honor of our neighbors, Jack and Sue Dignum!

We’ve received so many genuinely thoughtful gifts and good tidings this holiday season it would be impossible to list them all, but here is just a glimpse of the love, creativity and inspiration we’ve been gifted with:

Adorable, hand-made ornaments for the chimpanzees from Claudia H.:

So many wonderful holiday wishes and kind words from our amazing supporters:

This amazingly beautiful Advent calendar created by Kathleen C! (It’s taking all my willpower not to walk over and sneak a peek at the 25th right now):

Please know we are incredibly thankful to each and every one of you who have not only graciously made the chimpanzees’ holiday special, but most importantly, have made a difference in their lives. As I type this, the chimpanzees’ just finished a popcorn forage after a dinner of lentils and roasted squash. With bellies full of healthy food, they are safely asleep in their nests, resting in the comfort of their sanctuary home this Christmas Eve. Each of you through your thoughts, donations, in-kind gifts, and sharing what you know of the chimps with others have made this possible for them. I can think of no more meaningful gift and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. From all of the primates here at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, we wish you a magical Christmas Eve and holiday season filled with the love, comfort and compassion you so graciously share with us.

And if you haven’t done so already, please check out Holiday Central if you’d like to see how you can celebrate the holidays and help the sanctuary at the same time! Be sure to tune in tomorrow for the chimpanzees’ Christmas celebration! Until then, I leave you with a poem sent by another friend of the chimpanzees, Regina Lagrasta:

Possibilities

December 22, 2014 by Elizabeth

The chimpanzees access Young’s Hill, their two-acre outdoor habitat, through a doorway in the greenhouse. Missy is sitting in front of that door in this photo:

During the day, the chimpanzees spend a lot of time in front of this doorway looking out toward the hill. I think as much as they like being outside, they like the possibility of being outside almost as much. Today I caught some of the chimps taking turns sitting in the doorway and considering the possibilities.

Missy:

Jody:

Annie:

Roasted pears on snow, a delicacy

December 17, 2014 by Debbie

‘Tis the season for roasting and baking foods for the chimpanzees! They’ve had baked sweet potatoes almost everyday this week and they LOVE it! Food squeaks echo throughout the chimp house when they see the caramelized glaze on the potatoes. Yum! We’ve been experimenting with roasting some other foods, too, to mix things up a bit. Beets, carrots, and pears have all been a huge hit.

Today volunteer Sandra and I baked some pears with the plan to put a couple out as a forage after we cleaned the chimpanzees’ playroom. Here’s the before and after shots:

I turned off the oven well before we were done cleaning but the pears were still pretty hot when it was time to set up the forage. So we came up with a nice way to cool them off—use them as a topping on some snow!

Sandra filled bowls up with fresh snow that fell this morning and scattered bits of roasted pear on top. All the chimpanzees huddled around the door as we set up the forage, pant hooting and food squeaking with excitement.

Jamie did not hesitate in grabbing as many bowls as she possibly could. Luckily we scattered many bowls around so everyone got to have a few, but Jamie got the biggest haul. It also helped that she used a box as a collection device. She pulled her box around and added bowls to it as she went through the playroom, as a sort of shopping cart.

Once she had collected everything she could, she sat down to enjoy her snow and roasted pear snack.

Happy Birthday, Janice!

December 17, 2014 by Katelyn

Today’s day of sanctuary was sponsored by Janice Clayton! Today also happens to be Janice’s birthday and she shared that she felt there was no better way to celebrate!

Janice, thank you so much for choosing to give the gift of sanctuary to the chimpanzees on your own special day. Celebrating your life by making a difference in theirs is an incredibly kind thing to do. From all of the primates here at CSNW, thank you! We wish you the happiest of birthdays!!

Here’s Jody enjoying bamboo she harvested herself. A seemingly simple thing, but look at the joy in her face! Your support makes that possible and we couldn’t be more grateful.

Ebola and Great Ape Conservation

December 16, 2014 by Debbie

There are many questions about how this year’s Ebola outbreak started, how it spread so quickly, and how to prevent it from spreading further—but what does Ebola have to do with non-human great ape conservation?

It is known that Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever is transmitted by coming into direct contact with bodily fluids of someone infected and showing symptoms of the virus, a cadaver of someone who died from the virus, or the fluids or meat of an infected animal.

Bushmeat is the meat of any non-domesticated animal that is consumed by humans. In Africa, bushmeat is not only consumed locally, but it is exported worldwide. Many bushmeat species are endangered, in which cases the hunting of those species is illegal. Still, these animals are hunted, and their meat is sold on the black market and exported to other countries, including the United States. No one really knows just how many pounds of illegal bushmeat are smuggled into the U.S., because it is believed only a fraction of the imports are confiscated—but estimates range from hundreds of thousands to millions of pounds per year.

While habitat loss is the largest long-term threat to African ape populations, hunting for bushmeat has risen in the last couple of decades as the most significant immediate threat—and could cause species extinction if the practice continues to grow. However, with the emergence of the deadly Ebola virus, more people have begun to tune into the problem. Though research shows that fruit bats serve as hosts to the Ebola virus and are believed to be the direct source of the current outbreak, consumption of infected ape meat has been linked to previous outbreaks since the late 1990s. Primates and other animals can become infected by eating half-eaten fruit that have come in contact with fruit bat saliva, and the virus is passed to humans who eat infected animal bushmeat.

The Ebola virus can also be detrimental to wild ape populations. In 2002, over 5,000 gorillas died from an outbreak. In fact, the threat of imminent Ebola outbreaks (and other pathogens) on already dwindling populations has prompted researchers to propose developing a vaccination for the apes. Before vaccines could be administered to wild apes, however, some researchers feel they would need to be tested on captive apes. As we know, there is a push to end the use of chimpanzees in research altogether, so the topic sparked a debate earlier this year (read more on that here).

The Ebola scare has also left African sanctuaries in a predicament, such as Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Sierra Leone—one of the affected countries.

The travel limitations and general panic about the disease have kept people away from the country, and the lack of outreach opportunity has hit the sanctuary and others like them hard. Additionally, with travel restrictions in the affected countries, it is harder for volunteers to help with the day-to-day work. The sanctuaries have had to hire more local staff, causing their funds to be stretched thin. Recently, the Chimpanzee Conservation Center in Guinea has been impacted by this trouble as well. Thankfully, no apes in sanctuaries have contracted Ebola, and all the caregivers have been taking extra hygiene precautions to make sure everyone stays healthy.

Though the direct threat to great apes from Ebola is reason for concern, it’s possible that the attention on Ebola could have a positive impact on ape conservation and help prevent future outbreaks in human populations. Unlike other pandemics and deadly pathogens, which are able to sustain in human populations long-term, Ebola is a unique virus in that it comes and goes sporadically in humans in the form of destructive outbreaks. So far these outbreaks seem to have originated from human contact with infected wildlife. With effective education in local communities, and efforts to take legal action against logging, prevention of hunting and eating bushmeat can save countless lives—of both human and nonhuman apes.

A Little Adventure on Jamie’s Boots

December 15, 2014 by Keri

Volunteer caregiver-in-training Liz and I were walking around Young’s Hill with one of Jamie’s favorite boots not long ago. When we rounded the last corner of the hill, on our way back to give Jamie the boot, Liz spotted a patch of mud and decided to stick the sole of the boot in the mud “To put a little more adventure on it.” As soon as we went inside, we headed straight for where Jamie was so that she could have some time inspecting and grooming the boot.

Ever since that day, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. We’ll never really know why it is that Jamie insists that volunteers and staff walk around the outside of the Young’s Hill fence (always wearing or carrying a boot or two), while she patrols from inside the fence. Perhaps it’s because it’s just more fun to have company come along, or maybe she feels that she is “leading” the patrol if there is someone else with her. But, maybe it’s because she wants to have a little piece of “adventure” from the other side of the fence; her bit of freedom from the other side.

Whatever the reason may be, we are always happy to join her on her walks around Young’s Hill. The photos are from Jamie’s third walk around the hill today.