Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
Today I have for you a video of the chimpanzees enjoying food. Now, we all know that Burrito is pretty irresistible, especially when he’s excited about food (see exhibits A and B photos below):
But I think my favorite part of the video is Jamie’s look when she’s enjoying the last bit of smoothie from a dixie cup. See for yourself:
It’s cold and foggy here in Cle Elum, but that didn’t stop Missy, Jamie, and volunteer Becca from going on a few walks this morning.
Jamie likes to walk slowly and steadily, while Missy tends to run full speed until she catches up. Then she waits for Jamie and Becca to get ahead so she can run and catch up again.
But there’s something about the last downhill stretch that gets everybody running…even Jamie.
Missy is smooth and graceful when she’s running, while Jamie lumbers along awkwardly.
In fact, I sometimes worry that she’ll just run out of control with her head down until she crashes into the fence at the bottom of the hill.
But she always manages to stop.
And then it’s time to go around again.
Alpha Jamie can be pretty bossy, but she’s not entirely opposed to the other chimpanzees having some fun. (Just a little bit, on occasion.)
I’ll never tire of seeing this guy in our “portrait studio” — the place in the chimp house with a lot of great natural lighting. Just check these out!
The ceiling of the greenhouse is made up of long metal bars that allow the chimpanzees to brachiate (swing arm over arm), much like wild chimps swing through the trees. The chimps use these bars pretty often to move from place to place in the greenhouse. For Foxie, though, they’re more than functional – they’re fun. Foxie uses the greenhouse ceiling as her own personal playground. She climbs around upside down on all fours, and then dangles by her feet (sometimes while laughing). Today she took Dora along for the ride.
It didn’t take long for the chimpanzees to make their way outside today once the sun came out. Jamie, Jody, Annie, Missy, Foxie and Burrito all made their way onto Young’s Hill. While Jamie continued on to do her first perimeter walk around the hill, the other chimpanzees were more focused on eating the pieces of crusty snow they found. Missy seemed to be on a mission to find the perfect piece.
Missy took her time making her way across the logs, eating chunks of crusty snow along the way.
Then she moved on to Negra’s cabin in search of more pieces. Of course, as many of you know by now, Missy has a knack for climbing. She climbed up one of the posts and made her way up to the roof of the cabin.
Lo and behold, there it was, another big piece.
She took her time enjoying the morsel, taking in the scenery and scoping out where to find the next piece.
When she finished, she climbed onto the roof of the cabin and then proceeded to check for more crusty snow chunks on the other side.
After that, she continued up to the top of the cabin.
Ahhhh, the perfect piece.
I really like black and white photos. I think it lends a more intimate feeling to portraits – you can really concentrate on the person’s facial features and wonder about their personalities and their pasts without the distraction of color.
We’ve been getting some great close-up photos of the chimpanzees lately plus I found a few that we hadn’t posted before, so I thought I would render some in black and white and sepia.
What do you think?
This is a close up of Annie’s eyes:
Annie:
Foxie:
Jamie (I just love this photo that Katelyn took – it’s great in color and sepia):
Jody:
Burrito:
Missy:
Last, but never least, Negra:
