Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

chimpanzee sanctuary

Happy Birthday, Donna and Paula!

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Donna Haggarty-Robbins sponsored today in honor of a double celebration with this really lovely message:

“Today is my sister Paula’s (Andrews) birthday and mine! I can’t think of a better way to celebrate our birthdays (4 years apart) than to support the wonderful work you all are doing at Chimpanzee Sanctuary NW. These retired and rescued medical research chimps deserve all the loving care the dedicated Sanctuary staff provides them, year round.”

Happiest of birthdays to you both, Donna and Paula! Thank you so much for your generous support and kind words. We’re so grateful for the love and abundance that surrounds the chimpanzees and their home. All of us hope you have a beautiful day!

Annie and Missy:

Jamie and Foxie:

Burrito and Jody:

Honey B and Mave:

The First Fall Harvest

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Happy Fall Equinox, everybody! Though today was the first day of fall, it still felt like summer. It was a pretty mild day with clear skies. With conditions like these, we are trying to capitalize on as many forages for the chimpanzees we can fit in before the colder weather starts to creep in.

On today’s menu were kale, sweet potatoes, carrots, and oranges.

Missy:

I know we think of Missy as Fake Negra, but I almost had a moment where I thought there was a Fake Jody.

Annie:

Jody (the REAL Jody):

Negra:

Burrito:

Jamie:

Foxie:

On her way down from the Escher, Foxie came across one of her nemeses: Grasshoppers!

After their forage, it was perfect weather and timing for naps and relaxing!

Jody resting while still nibbling on some of her greens from the forage.

Foxie about to nod off for an afternoon slumber.

On the other side of the building, the Three were treated to leeks for dinner.

Willy B:

Mave:

Honey B decided to take her food and run, literally. She demanded her portions (especially the leek) and ran into the Chute.

Summer’s last sigh

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The end of summer. How can it be? I am an autumn person through and through. If there were nine months of autumn and one month each of winter, spring, and summer I would be pretty happy with that. But this year, no one I know, myself included, feels ready to let summer go.

Given the many days of Burrito’s recovery (now thankfully healed and returned to his family), followed by the many days of hazardous, smoke-filled air (now thankfully cleared away), we are all beside ourselves with gratitude at the sense of ease, joy and freedom we’ve been having this week. The chimpanzees’ have continued to enjoy lunch forages on Young’s Hill and we’ve all been basking in the final gifts of summer, each of us sighing along with summer’s last breath:

Jody holds her reign as “Farmer Jo”:

Negra enjoying her lunch with a view:

Foxie:

Burrito:

Jamie:

Annie:

Diana mentioned on Saturday how we’ve been anxiously awaiting the chimpanzees’ grapes to ripen and have finally been able to harvest these beauties. Can you believe these gorgeous things?!

I went out to harvest some for dinner, but Annie, Jody and Burrito insisted they should be served immediately, garden to belly:

Everyone squeezed (politely, somehow) into the raceway (the chute that gives the chimpanzees access to Young’s Hill from the greenhouse) and lined up for their serving. Bunches of grapes aren’t the easiest things to serve through the caging so apologies for all the caging shots. But, their faces! A fleeting summertime gift.

Jo!! My favorite photo, look at her eyes! 🙂

Foxie:

Burrito’s tactic is just shoveling them in as fast as he can, naturally:

Missy and her sweet little runner’s legs:

(And fiddlesticks, I just realized that my photo of sweet Annie with her grape cluster didn’t take, and Negra chose to stay in her nest, though she did receive a few grapes via delivery).

Meanwhile, I could hear Willy B blowing raspberries from the other side of the grapevines, in the chute, where he and Honey B were anxiously waiting for their serving:

Honey B:

In the past couple of days that we’ve been harvesting the grapes we’ve learned that Mave in particular LOVES them. She chose to wait inside for hers and when I rounded the corner with them her hair was standing on end in sheer excitement (pilo-erect) making her glorious fluffy self even floofier! Here she is gazing adoringly at them:

Somehow the grape feast, being a hot ticket event, went off without a hitch. For the most part that is. Turns out the seven were not in a sharing mood and had a lot to say about the three partaking in the feast as well. That’s alright. I don’t like sharing, say, my cookies, so I get it. 😉

A bonus photo of Jamie enjoying her beloved boot book in her nest:

It’s been such a beautiful day. It’s nearly dark already and as I type this I hear geese flying overhead and the raspberry patch is a chorus of frog song – I suspect from the little guys I rescued and put in there earlier today. Betwixt and between. Wherever are you, and whichever season you happen to be saying farewell to in your part of the world in welcome of the next, I hope there’s beauty there. I’m convinced it’s there for all of us in one form or another. We just have to keep an eye and an ear out.

If Looks Could Kale

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Jody has a healthy appreciation for fresh, hand-picked greens.

Recently, local volunteer Krissy has been delivering bags of primate chow to the sanctuary’s front gate. More often than not, she also leaves behind a large bin of produce from her home garden. This weekend, we added the generous assortment of leafy greens to the chimps’ lunches, which we then dispersed in Young’s Hill so that they could spend the afternoon foraging.

Most greens are cultivars of one species: cabbage. In its wild form, cabbage (Brassica oleracea) grows on the seaside cliffs of Europe. Over millennia, the domesticated variants have become a common food crop for humans around the globe. Despite their distinct grocery names, kale, collared greens, cauliflower, broccoli, kohlrabi, and Brussels sprouts are all just types of cabbage that have been shaped by artificial selection. Of course, “Farmer Jo” loves them all equally.

Today, Jo did her usual thing (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6) and gathered up an impressive bundle of greens. Although it was an unusually quiet day at the sanctuary, even around the chimps, the loud crunch of woody stems filled the Greenhouse for a short while. Negra spent the early minutes of the forage collecting the grapes and chow biscuits nearest to the Greenhouse, but missed out on the kale. Upon returning, she sat behind Jody and begged for a piece. Jo ignored her, but eventually discarded enough leafless stalks to satisfy Neggie, who promptly scooped them up and waddled inside.

Compared to the usual dynamics, today’s drama was relatively tame.

An Apple A Day Keeps The Smoke Away

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As you may know, the entire West Coast of the United States is covered in smoke. But today, there was some reprieve. If I were a person who believed adages, I think it would be the one with apples. As the saying goes,” An apple a day keeps the smoke away,” or something to the like.

Regardless, the sky was clearer today than it has been the past few. So much so, the chimpanzees were able to enjoy a considerable amount of time outside.

Foxie took her morning serving of apples to go and enjoy the outdoors.

Missy also took her breakfast to go. But before she made her rounds around Young’s Hill, she had to try to take a peek at her neighbors.

Later on during the day, Foxie took Strawberry Shortcake and Orange Blossom for a walk around the Hill.

I couldn’t decide which photo to include, so I’m just going to include both.

Afterward, she decided it was a good time for a nap.

Burrito also had his apples for the day. For lunch, he was given an apple, which he became really excited about.

Burrito still continues to recover from his incident. His enthusiasm and energy could deceive anybody that anything had ever happened to him. We are hoping the day comes soon when he will be reunited with his family.

This next photo I just wanted to share for the sake of sharing it. I took it on Sunday. Willy B and Mave were over the smoke and construction. So we decided to give them one of their favorite enrichment items.

Firehose Cubes!

I probably have blabbered on long enough. As I was closing up the different areas of the Chimp House, I found Mave like this two minutes ago.

She’s more than likely waiting for me to turn off the lights and lock the doors so she can get some sleep. So I will oblige and let her and everyone else get some sleep.

Good night, everybody!

Smoky day games

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Much like the entire west coast, the air at the sanctuary has continued to range between very unhealthy to hazardous the last few days.

So we did our best to find some extra enrichment activities to keep everyone busy with their extra indoor time. For Mave, Honey B, and Willy B, this turned out to be peanut butter filled hanging frisbee puzzles. These are still relatively new to the three and they love them!

Mave:

Willy B:

Honey B (apologies for these pixelated photos, but she’s cute!):

Like everything Honey B does, she does it with passion. Her face and cheeks are covered in peanut butter. 🙂

In between hanging frisbees, the three made their own enrichment by supervising the construction workers, as demonstrated by Willy B:

The construction crew continues to amaze us with their hard work and progress. They’re incredible – pandemic, brutal heatwaves, wildfire smoke, it doesn’t matter, they are out there! And it looks entirely different every day. Things are moving right along:

Over on the other side, Burrito (left) enjoyed a lunch date with sweet Jody (right), who ended up spending the entire afternoon with him. Granted, she was also enjoying her “alone time” by building a huge nest and resting peacefully while Burrito played with his human caregivers. But believe me, no one provides better care to a chimpanzee, than another chimpanzee. And caregiver Jody is about the best you could hope for:

As the day ended we caught a few brief glimpses of blue sky with birds circling high again. It felt like a deep breath, mentally and emotionally at least. We can see the neighbors’ homes on the hills above us again. We are hoping these are signs that the smoke is beginning to break up and lessen a bit. That said, we are currently some of the fortunate few who aren’t currently threatened by wildfires. And while there are no words adequate for such experiences, please know our thoughts are constantly with all of you who are navigating the profound worry, fear and devastating loss they are bringing. From our hearts, we wish for your safety, well-being and recovery.

Veterinary Clinic Tour

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The sanctuary’s upgraded veterinary clinic has come up quite a bit lately.

We have utilized this area frequently over the past year, and it recently gave us the ability to respond to an unexpected emergency. Thanks to its impeccable usefulness and immediate relevance, the clinic was also mentioned several times during last night’s virtual auction: HOOT! 2020. As we explained to the event’s participants, your generous contributions have built this on-site clinic for the chimpanzees and will help us to add additional equipment and vital supplies in the near future. We caregivers are all comforted to have such a modern and secure facility located just across the hallway from the chimpanzee enclosures so that any necessary procedures can be done safely and effectively.

Because we are so grateful for all of the support and we love to teach people about our work, Dr. Erin and I thought it would be fitting to take you all on a virtual tour of the veterinary clinic! In the video, Dr. Erin also explains some of our protocols and we would love to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you once again for making all of this possible!