Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

chimpanzee sanctuary

An intense focus

by

Jamie takes life pretty seriously. She likes to work on her projects, eat meals, take walks, and interact very intensely. Her focus can certainly be intimidating but it’s one of the traits I really admire, probably because it resonates. Today we set up a cabbage forage in the playroom after morning cleaning. In the series of photos that I snapped of Jamie enjoying the cabbage you can see how intently she was savoring each bite. What is even more unusual about this series is that Jamie was so absorbed with her snack that I was able to get in a number of shots before her focus turned to the camera!

web_Jamie_sit_ltbarndoors_cabbage_forage_profile_PR_ls_IMG_0350

web_Jamie_cabbage_forage_series9_PR_ls_IMG_0315

web_Jamie_cabbage_forage_series8_PR_ls_IMG_0316

web_Jamie_cabbage_forage_series7_PR_ls_IMG_0317

web_Jamie_cabbage_forage_series6_PR_ls_IMG_0324

web_Jamie_cabbage_forage_series5_PR_ls_IMG_0326

web_Jamie_cabbage_forage_series4_PR_ls_IMG_0327

web_Jamie_cabbage_forage_series2_PR_ls_IMG_0330

Thank you, Tracy!

by

Today’s very special day of sanctuary was sponsored by Tracy Dunham! Tracy shared the following  message:

“On this special anniversary I would like to sponsor the day in honor of Jane Goodall. She has long been an inspiration to me and I am sure of many others. I admire her tireless advocacy on behalf of not just chimps. Her eloquent letter to Vancouver Aquarium on behalf of belugas and dolphins has no doubt made an impact. She is a visionary, a teacher, an environmentalist and I am sure no one would be happier to celebrate the new life that the chimps have made for themselves.”

As you may be aware, today is not only Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest’s sixth anniversary, but it is also the honorary 41st birthday of beloved Queen Negra! Negra was captured from the wild, presumably in 1973, although she could be even older. While we do not know the exact date of Negra’s birth we felt what better day to celebrate her and the birth of a new life than June 13th, the day the chimpanzees arrived at their sanctuary home after decades in biomedical research. A new life filled with choices, comfort, dignity and love.

Tracy, thank you so much for all you do for the chimpanzees and for contributing to their (and our!) day of celebration!

web_Negra_sun_YH_grass_jb_IMG_4769

And thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, to all of our supporters who have made the last six years of hope, love, home and sanctuary possible for Negra and her chimpanzee family. We could not do it without you.

Be sure to check back later today for the chimpanzees’ festivities! And it’s not too late to contribute to our day of celebration! Learn more about our future plans and please consider a donation supporting the next six years and beyond, making this the Luckiest Friday the 13th ever!

Taking it Easy

by

The pace of life in central Washington is different from what you might be used to experiencing on a daily basis. Slower, warmer, and quieter certainly come to mind, pastoral, if you will. In this context, the peaceful ease that the chimpanzees share with one another can be taken for granted. But their ability to relax with as much abandon as they do everything else is remarkable and, truly, a joy to behold. No matter what kind of day you may have had, take a moment to stop and relax with the Cle Elum Seven. They’ll show you how it’s done!

Streamer day

by

Every day we like to provide the chimpanzees with different enrichment themes to make their day interesting. We also love to throw parties for any occasion! We even have a storage bin of extra party supplies, which has collected a lot of surplus streamer rolls lately. So today we decided to call “Streamer Day,” and Elizabeth, volunteer Sandra, and I made an intricate maze of streamers in the greenhouse this morning.

You may recall this video of Burrito really enjoying the streamers for our Seahawks party—so we were hoping today’s theme would be a big hit.

I think that our streamer maze was a success overall! Missy built a pretty great nest with some of the streamers:

web_missy_streamer_nest_seatbelt_gh_dm_IMG_9673

web_missy_streamer_nest_gh_dm_IMG_9674

and even Foxie (who doesn’t usually build nests) started to make a streamer nest, too!

web_foxie_streamer_nest_so_hot_french_dora_sit_gh_dm_IMG_9679

Some of the chimpanzees really like to wadge the streamers. I personally am not an expert on streamer taste, but perhaps each color is different—Jody was interested in tasting each flavor of this Neapolitan-esque streamer:

web_jody_eat_streamer_gh_dm_IMG_0018

Jody also un-characteristically swung on a firehose up to one of the windows in the greenhouse (she’s not usually that agile).

web_jody_about_to_swing_firehose_streamer_gh_dm_IMG_9954

web_jody_swing_firehose_streamer_gh_dm_IMG_9958

This isn’t a great photo of Annie, but really shows how awesome our streamer maze was:

web_annie_streamer_enrichment_gh_dm_IMG_9972

Foxie is still hanging on to French Dora, who now has also lost her shirt in addition to the pants and beret she lost yesterday.

web_foxie_french_dora_streamer_gh_dm_IMG_0014

web_foxie_look_up_streamer_gh_dm_IMG_0016

Gifts From Friends

by

We’ve written on the blog before about supporters Diane and Syd Marcus’s amazingly creative and thoughtful care packages for the chimpanzees. They always choose personalized gifts for each of the chimps, tailored to their individual interests. In one of these packages last year, Diane and Syd included a French Dora the Explorer doll for Foxie, which became possibly Foxie’s favorite Dora of all time. French Dora was eventually loved to death, but today we received another package from Diane and Syd with another French Dora! Foxie was beside herself. I was unable to get any photos of Foxie with her new Dora for the first hour that she had her, because she took her to a private spot for some snuggling.

For lunch today, we set up a forage on Young’s Hill, and Dora accompanied Foxie on her travels. (She had already lost her pants by this time, but no one seemed to mind.)

web_Foxie_walk_new_Frenchie_Dora_in_mouth_YH_ek_IMG_9925

web_Foxie_walk_new_Frenchie_Dora_in_mouth_YH_ek_IMG_9924

When Foxie’s mouth was too full of food, she tossed Dora on her back for safe keeping.

web_Foxie_mouth_full_of_food_forage_new_Frenchie_Dora_on_back_YH_ek_IMG_9929

Thanks to Diane and Syd for always enriching the chimps’ lives in unique and special ways.

How time flies

by

I was just telling JB yesterday, I can’t believe it is just two weeks away from our six year anniversary! Wow. How is it almost half-way through 2014 already? Well the saying rings true here at the sanctuary—how time flies when you’re having fun. 🙂

Perhaps it’s on my mind because we’re going to start doing 100 Happy Days next week, but I’ve been thinking about all the really great memories from the last six years! I’m curious what YOUR favorite happy moments are. Comment here with your most favorite memory (and if you have it bookmarked already, give us the link to the blog post about it, so new readers can look back with us!)

Here’s some photos I found from this month that hadn’t been posted before, of the seven amazing chimpanzees we’ve had the pleasure of caring for during the last six years.

web_Annie_sit_hold_lilacs_in_hand_YH_ls_IMG_9312

web_Burrito_close_up_eat_food_lettuce_raceway_GH_ek_IMG_9142

web_Foxie_lie_on_deck_with_trolls_enrichment_look_at_camera_GH_ek_IMG_9581

web_Jamie_hold_new_boots_from_volunteer_Erika_GH_ek_IMG_9704

web_Jody_lay_yoga_pose_pigeon_gh_dg_IMG_9659

web_Annie_Missy_groom_platform_GH_ek_IMG_9591

web_Negra_walk_green_grass_YH_ek_IMG_9005

I’m looking forward to hearing what your favorite happy moments are!