Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
If we’re being honest, we have to admit that chimpanzees are cooler than us in many ways. Some of the chimpanzee attributes I’m most envious of are their superior strength, their amazing feet, and their flexibility, as demonstrated below.
Annie:
Jody:
A U.S. company called Herakles Farms is planning to begin a palm oil plantation in Cameroon near the border of Nigeria. Chimpanzees and gorillas live in these forests, and in fact the most endangered subspecies of each ape are living in that region. The Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee population (a.k.a. Elliot’s chimpanzee) is estimated to be approximately 3,500 individuals remaining. The Cross River gorilla population is estimated to be fewer than 300 individuals.
Endangered chimpanzees, forest elephants, and monkeys all live within the Herakles Farms concession. These already diminishing populations need our help!
This form letter has been put together to make it very easy for us to lend our voice in support of the apes, courtesy of Greenpeace. Although it is very convenient to just fill in your name and email and hit “send”—it really helps to make your letter unique. Tell the CEO of Herakles Farms why it is important to you that their plans for a palm oil plantation in Cameroon be canceled immediately.
We know from the plight of orangutans in Southeast Asia that palm oil directly negatively affects their population, sometimes driving orangutans and other forest dwellers to starvation when their homes are slashed and burned to the ground to make room for the plantations. In your day-to-day life, try to be a conscious consumer and avoid palm oil where you can. You can help be an advocate for apes every day by taking this extra effort to check the ingredient list of products you buy!
After sending your letter, take a few minutes to watch the second installment of a video interview with Dr. Debra Durham, where she talks a little bit about her conservation efforts with wild chimpanzees. Her current project is called Compassion in Action Mushroom Project (it’s a really innovative plan to help protect wild chimpanzees—be sure to check it out!)
Jamie isn’t the only chimp that loves boots here at the sanctuary! Every once in awhile, we notice someone else inspecting the boots when Jamie sets them down for a moment.
Jody:
Negra:
Missy: (and Diana)
The weather has been volatile today as you can see by the clouds menacing the sanctuary with the promise of rain.
What better way to spend a rainy, blustery Sunday than curled up in a nest with some of your favorite things? I certainly can’t argue with that!
Annie nesting in the greenhouse:
Missy in a nest on the catwalk in the playroom:
Jamie inside with her boots:
Jody peeking out from a nest on the catwalk:
Negra from underneath the blankets:
And while I personally would prefer the nap, I have it on good authority that although rain is threatening, that’s no reason to cancel a perfectly good walk around Young’s Hill!
Thanks so much to everyone who voted for Jamie’s art in the HSUS contest! She’s pretty wiped out from a busy week of campaigning.
People often ask me who my favorite chimpanzee is. I don’t really like trying to pick one—and to be honest, I can’t. Each of the Cle Elum Seven are unique and awesome in their own way and I love them all. But I would say that I have the best relationship with Jamie. Sometimes, there are just different people that you “click” with a little more than others.
So, I wouldn’t want to say that Jamie is my favorite, but I definitely find that we spend more time together. Perhaps this is because Jamie is more human-oriented than the other chimps, and so we end up liking the same things. We also happen to share a birthday, which I think is pretty cool.
She likes to check out all of the caregivers’ shoes and boots, and we are more than happy to oblige. She loves to write and draw and use tools. I was thinking today about all the interesting and awesome things Jamie does on a day-to-day basis and what we have featured on our blog over the years, so I decided to compile a “best of” list.
As Katelyn described yesterday, Jamie occasionally likes to wear scarves or other clothing accessories. I love this blog post from awhile ago called “How to ruin a perfectly good scarf.” Fashion is important to Jamie, but sometimes playing can take precedence.
Speaking of playing, Foxie and Jamie are pretty great friends. Foxie is a total goof! Here’s a video from awhile ago of the two of them wrestling in a giant box:
I like this post from just a few months after the chimps arrived. We were still learning about all their personalities, and this captures Jamie’s fairly well.
Jamie also really likes to help us clean up. She will sometimes sit and watch us clean, as if she’s evaluating our work. As the Boss of the sanctuary, I suppose that is her job!
She’s also really good about testing out new things and making sure we’ve done things up to her standards. You could say she’s in charge of the quality control department at CSNW. She loves to also take new things apart using tools!
Probably one of the highlights of our day is when Jamie asks to go on a walk around the hill. This is the post where J.B. explains how we came to realize this is also Jamie’s highlight of the day!
I also really love remembering the day we gave a ukulele to Jamie. She was thrilled! She treated it just like any of her other projects—investigate every possible piece of it!
It is sometimes hard to describe Jamie, and maybe that just speaks to her uniqueness. I love this blog where Diana explains that Jamie is, well, a complicated chimpanzee.
Finally, as we all know, Jamie is an artist. Here’s some retrospective posts on a few of her artistic endeavors:
Jamie’s an artist! (June 21, 2008)
Jamie’s paintings (August 20, 2008)
Scribbling (September 9, 2008)
Jamie’s dexterity (April 1, 2009)
Jamie, the artiste (November 10, 2010)
Art (August 24, 2011)
Jamie’s letter to you (March 22, 2012)
Jamie’s artistic side (January 11, 2013)
Lend your vote to support Jamie’s wonderful mixed-media art in the HSUS Art Contest going on now until Thursday. You are permitted to vote once per day, so please keep voting for Jamie!
Like most artists, Jamie chooses to express her creative mind in a variety of ways. Jamie spent the first nine years of her life living with a human as a “pet” and being used in the entertainment industry. While we know virtually nothing about this time in Jamie’s life, she often chooses to engage in human oriented activities, most likely as a result of her unnatural childhood. For example, today Jamie chose to arrive for lunch wearing a red bandana tied around her neck (which she untied and re-adjusted half way through her meal). While we certainly do not advocate for chimpanzees being dressed in clothing, here at CSNW we do try to offer a variety of enrichment (including clothing) to accommodate their individuals interests. If the chimpanzees want to wear things, tear them up, play tug-o-war, make a nest with them, or ignore them, it’s their choice. Choice being the key word here. We recognize that each of the chimpanzees have unnatural histories which have influenced their individual interests and that plays a key role in developing individualized enrichment to keep their intelligent minds active.
Notice the perfect knot Jamie incorporated into her bandana!
Jamie chooses to wear clothing less and less since arriving at the sanctuary. While we want Jamie and her family to be able to engage in whatever interests them, it also thrills us to see their unique “chimpanzee-ness” coming out more and more. For Jamie, that sometimes still means wearing a bandana to lunch, patrolling the perimeter of Young’s Hill with her cowgirl boot, and occasionally drawing and painting when there is no “business” to take care of as Boss of the sanctuary. And that’s what sanctuary is all about, choices and the ability to express one’s self as one wants. And the art of expressing herself as she wants is something Jamie is a true artist at.
If you haven’t cast your vote for Jamie’s artwork yet in the Humane Society’s chimpanzee-only art contest, please do so now! It’s a wonderful way to help our artist-in-residence and her chimpanzee family!
