Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
It is such an incredible joy to see Missy on Young’s Hill using all of the structures for climbing and leaping and balancing and just sitting up high. She does not waste any opportunity to get the most out of the chance to move and explore.
J.B.’s description of Missy as, “a spring that was coiled up for decades, just waiting to be released” remains perfect. Just see for yourself in the photos that J.B. took this morning during a forage on the hill. Go, Missy, Go!
Some people think that we should judge an animal’s quality of life by whether or not their basic needs are being met. Do they have food, water, heat, medical care, etc.? But if we applied these criteria to ourselves, prison wouldn’t be much of a deterrent – we’d all be knocking on the gate trying to get in. Obviously, we humans are willing to deal with some amount of risk and stress in life in exchange for things like freedom, autonomy, and self-determination. And I think that chimpanzees, if they were given the choice, would do the same.
Wild chimpanzees have jobs to do. They must take care of their young, travel great distances in search of food, and defend their territory from rival communities. Captivity gives chimps everything they need to survive, but robs them of purpose.
Well, not entirely. Every once and a while, we catch a glimpse of it here. When the chimps patrol Young’s Hill, they change – their faces, their postures, everything. It’s possible that I’m just projecting my own feelings here, but they seem so much more alive when they are at work like that.
Life may be nasty, brutish, and short for some wild chimpanzees, but I’d give anything for these chimps to have had a chance at it.
Annie gets more beautiful with each year that passes at the sanctuary. She is also more likely to be in a quiet moment where she doesn’t mind her human friends taking photos, so I was able to get a few very close-up photos of her beauty this afternoon. Which photo below is your favorite?
The Queen of Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest turns 41 today, and as you might have guessed, we threw a party – an English tea party, to be precise. Volunteers Patti and Steph even cut the crusts off the sandwiches. Negra enjoyed a forage on the hill this morning before the weather turned bad, and then she was treated to a greenhouse full of extra straw and blankets for nesting. The menu for today contained all of Negra’s favorites: bread, lettuce, nuts, avocado, and sweet potato, among many others. She even got night bags at every meal.
We do a lot of celebrating around here, but nothing means as much to us as Negra’s birthday, and no one deserves to be spoiled more than her. She is, after all, the Queen.
Happy Birthday, Neggie.
It’s been a warm, lazy afternoon at the sanctuary today (at least for the chimpanzees). The chimps were all sequestered away napping and out of range of the camera today and there was a lot of yawning, napping and general lazing about happening. But what a wonderful thing to be able to rest in peace and comfort with only the sound of the wind and the birds as you doze in and out of dreams.
Or if you’re Jody, to lie about with your foraged bamboo. Apparently, dried up bamboo is also an exciting treat by her standards:
It seems it does get stuck in your teeth:
But that’s OK, Jody looks happy nevertheless:
Burrito is a handsome guy. When you see a face like this:
you might think it belongs to a suave and dignified gentleman. But Burrito has a silly side. In fact, he’s all silly side. And he, like the rest of us, loves a good slinky.
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!
