Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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chimpanzee

Happy Birthday, Amy!

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Today was sponsored by Amy Adams, who is celebrating her birthday by giving a day of sanctuary to the chimpanzees! Amy has also generously requested that her friends and loved ones make a difference in the chimps’ lives in honor of her birthday!

Amy, thank you so much for using your own special day as a way to celebrate the chimpanzees and make a difference in their lives. All of us here appreciate your kind heart so much and wish you the happiest birthday yet!

Jamie:

Foxie and Strawberry Shortcake:

Jody:

Mave:

Dreaming of Cooler Times

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With another hot, summer day, there was very little activity to be had to try to escape the heat. Early in the morning, the Group of Seven were given access to Young’s Hill, with Burrito leading the charge.

Negra however, decided to stay in the shady Greenhouse to escape the morning sun with a yellow-haired Troll Doll. None of the other chimpanzees stayed out for long, with Jody being the first to retreat back to the Greenhouse.

In one of the few instances where the clouds decided to provide some much needed relief, Jamie politely asked me to join her on a walk around Young’s Hill. Ok. She may have demanded it since it was one of the few instances she felt decent to go out. Missy (not pictured because she zoomed right passed us), Foxie, and Burrito also decided to join us.

After our walk, Foxie decided to follow Negra, Jody, and Annie’s lead by resting in the cool front rooms. Notice her Orange Blossom doll also snuggled in for an afternoon nap.

The Californian Three also had similar ideas. For the most part, they also decided to stay inside. Willy B did venture out into the Courtyard, but not for too long. Mave decided to just stay inside.

Willy B also found a new use for an old enrichment item. Both groups of chimpanzees share a large, stuffed dog that makes it’s way to both sides of the building after being washed.

Willy B decided this stuffed dog was his new bed.

It was only a few short months ago, Katelyn reported on how paired swallows started to nest. Now that summer is here, their babies have hatched and they have been helping keeping the sanctuary safe by being on guard. Even keeping us caregivers on our toes at times.

The arrival of summer

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Summer has arrived! We find ourselves suddenly in the mid-eighties today which is typical in that we don’t get a lot of working up to the heat, it just goes from cool to hot. The chimpanzees are pretty endearing when the temperatures soar. Much like humans you’ll find the chimps spread out as if melted into a puddle, legs in the air, hoping to catch a breeze.

Jody propped herself up on the platform to check out Young’s Hill:

When she needs a break from the heat, she’ll often come into the shaded front rooms to rest:

The chimps have been lounging around in the heat and enjoying ice cube treats and summertime berries. They have a currant bush outside that greenhouse that is just ripening and Jamie wasted no time whatsoever letting me know they were ready and she needed some immediately. The other chimps seem to take them or leave them, but Jamie LOVES them! I have no idea why, straight from the vine they will make you pucker right up.

That said, here is Missy trying out a handful:

Our neighbor swallow family right outside our front gate have welcomed new hatchlings and the parents have been extra busy today fiercely protecting them by dive-bombing the silly humans:

Anthony captured these sweet bovine moments of Nutmeg sunbathing:

His mama, Betsy:

Mother and son moment:

In exciting news for Mave, Willy B and Honey B, with these warmer evenings, they now have overnight access to their chute! While we don’t think they are sleeping out there at night, when I came up the driveway this morning, I found Mave snoozing in the top of the chute and she didn’t even bother to turn over to see who was coming. And Honey B has been requesting her meals be served out there when possible. She has a little shaded area that she loves to sit with all her blankets, paper and of course, her skateboard. I did capture a photo of Honey B in her shaded spot enjoying the award winning book, “The Chimpanzee Chronicles” a just released book by Debra Rosenman (which includes a story written by Diana!). And notice the handsome cover model. 🙂

It’s been too hot for much walking today, that is, until now. As Chad and I have wrapped up things in the chimp house, and all the other chimpanzees are in bed, Jamie has decided we should enjoy the evening now that the sun is going down and a nice breeze is coming up. Wishing you all a lovely, Jamie-style, evening!

Happy Summer!

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Dylan Most is sponsoring this wonderful day of sanctuary for the chimpanzees to wish them “a great summer!”  Dylan, thank you for helping the chimpanzees (and humans) celebrate this season of light, growth and abundance!

Like every year, in some ways it’s hard to believe it’s already summer here in the northern hemisphere. But with many of us having slowed down some, or most of our lives during these past months due to the global pandemic, we’ve also hopefully found moments to be more present with time making the arrival of summer seem, well, right on time. As it always is. It’s definitely a season when we humans here at CSNW relish watching the chimpanzees enjoy their days full of sun, lush scenery, adventure and the ease that only summertime brings.

Jody and Negra (background):

Negra:

Jamie:

Burrito and Foxie and Strawberry Shortcake:

Missy:

Annie:

Mave and Honey B:

Willy B:

4,392 Days of Summer

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I used to live my life for the summers.

Growing up in a maritime New England town, summer was always the “best” season. The warm weather and sandy coastline brought tourists from all over, and my teenage friends and I spent those months playing baseball, mowing lawns, and bringing Dunkin iced coffees to our favorite beaches. Even though I moved to a big city and academics took over, I still wanted to live my life in a permanent state of summer vacation and I developed this dream of expatriating to the tropics and staying there. As a naive young biologist, my plan was to track wild primates through jungles all morning and end each day with a bottle of rum in a hammock overlooking some turquoise lagoon. (Don’t ask me how I planned to fund that kind of lifestyle.)

In an unexpected turn of events, I now reside in an arid place far from the ocean where the summers are short, windy and dry. I’ve grown to respect the other seasons and, for some reason, I can now see the beauty in even the most frigid, gloomy, foggy, damp, and dusty landscapes. The Pacific Northwest is a natural marvel; it’s truly a wonder that the snow-capped Cascades can exist so close to the mossy forests of the Olympic coast, the dusty shrub-steppe of the Columbia plateau, and the wind-blown grasslands of the Palouse. Out here, there’s no such thing as perfect weather; there is just weather, and you better have the right gear for it.

Now, the central region of Washington state is transitioning from a cool and wet spring into a dry and hazy summer. Yesterday was the official solstice, but we have had golden sunlight well into the evenings for the whole month of June. The cattle are grazing heartily on the prairie grasses and make daily pilgrimages back to their watering hole before finding some afternoon shade below the pines. Jamie and the gang have been taking advantage of the extra daylight to go on more group patrols out in their grassy enclosure, and Willy B and his friends have been napping in the Courtyard and sunbathing in the outdoor chute.

I sometimes wonder if, in some abstract way, the summer months have a similar effect on the chimpanzees as they had on adolescent me. As I watch them chase each other around the Hill, harvest wild greens, sunbathe in the Greenhouse and slurp down chunks of avocado and watermelon, it’s easy to forget just how much the chimps also enjoy crunching on icicles, taking in the crisp fall breeze and napping on rainy days. Like true residents of the Pacific Northwest, they can make the most of any season and aren’t deterred by a little precipitation. Although they may not have the same sentimental attachment to summer that I once had, I hope that their entire sanctuary experience gives them a similar sense of freedom, with their only objective being to do whatever they feel like doing within the confines of their sheltered home. Since they’ve just celebrated the twelfth anniversary of their retirement to sanctuary, they have now had 4,392 consecutive days of vacation. That’s a whole lot o’ summer.

Of course, there are those who generally prefer the comforts of the indoors and the word “vacation” just means that they don’t need to get out of bed. To these individuals, the seasonal changes really don’t seem to matter too much and just seem to flow around them. The chief of these stoic couch-potatoes is Negra. “The Queen” will occasionally venture out to participate in an outdoor forage, but she generally has the same low-key itinerary each day, rain or shine. Today, she napped in the Greenhouse under a pile of fleece blankets while the other chimps engaged in summer fun out on the Hill. Happy four-thousand, three-hundred and ninety-second day of summer break, Neggie.

Happy Father’s Day, Robert!

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Sharon Langone is sponsoring this day “in honour of my Dad, Robert Kelly! Happy Father’s Day, Dad!”

Thank you for celebrating the chimpanzees and your Dad on this special day, Sharon! We so appreciate you thinking of the chimps in this way.

Happy Father’s Day, Robert! The two chimpanzee men at the sanctuary, Burrito and Willy B, aren’t fathers, but we suspect they might have some suggestions on how to celebrate today:

Willy B taking in the great outdoors:

Being doted on by family and friends:

Napping in a sun puddle:

And Burrito, well, if you know Burrito you’ll know he thinks no day would possibly be complete without an abundance of #1) Food:

And #2) Being wild and laughing a lot:

Different ways of getting around

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This post was originally about family. I was writing it in my head throughout the day. I was going to talk about how the chimpanzees at the sanctuary are really a lot like other families because they did not choose to be together, but they had to figure out their relationships and find the things they liked about each other.

More words, hopefully an interesting insight, blah, blah, blah.

Then I watched the video clips that I had taken and I was fascinated just by the way the different chimpanzees in the clips moved.

If you’ve ever been hanging out at a race to cheer on a friend or relative running, I’m sure you were surprised by the variation in the way that human beings move their bodies when they are running. There are a few people who look natural and graceful while running, but most of us are a bit on the awkward side of things when it comes to speedy locomotion. I think the same can be said for chimpanzees.

We primates will not be mistaken for cheetahs anytime soon, but we do okay getting from one place to another, and sometimes, like Missy and Burrito and Jody and Foxie in the video above, we can have fun doing it.

Bonus photo of Annie’s sporty look today: