Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

chimpanzee

Happy Birthday, Alisa!

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Today was sponsored by Ed for Alisa Brooks, and it’s her 50th birthday! Ed shared this wonderful message with us:

Alisa is turning 50 today and she would rather help the chimps get some yummy food than get a present herself. Alisa has a depth of love for animals that is always guiding her. I can see the warmth of her heart, as she watches the chimps in their many adventures at the sanctuary. Whether she is tracking the travels of whales, helping a lost pet reunite with its human, or watching the chimps play, she is doing what she loves.

Thank you Alisa for caring so much about the Cle Elum Seven, and thank you to Ed for generously sponsoring the day for her! Here’s a photo of Annie and Missy playing:

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Games with Foxie

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Okay, okay — I know I just posted a bunch of Foxie photos yesterday, but this video was just too much fun to not post. So, here she is, the nearly 38 year old chimp who is going on six. 🙂

Foxie with a new troll and outreach updates

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If you are active on our Facebook pages and like to see updates about the chimps there—I have some important news! We have decided to share more photos of the chimps on our main page and close down the individual chimp pages, so it’s all in one place and more people will get to see stories about the Cle Elum Seven. We have made dedicated photo albums of each chimp and will be transferring photos from their individual pages to these albums this week.

We’re also going to participate in the social media challenge of 100 Happy Days. The idea is that for 100 days in a row, we will post a picture of something that represents happiness for the sanctuary. Really, every day is a happy day in sanctuary, so this shouldn’t be too hard! We will use the hashtag #100HappyDays so that any other person participating in the challenge will see our posts, too. I think it will be a lot of fun and I hope you all will enjoy it. We will do the majority of the posts on our Instagram and Pinterest pages, but will post them to our Facebook page as well once a week. Even if you don’t use those social media sites, you can still view the photos!

As a side, we are SO close to reaching 10,000 likes. How awesome would it be to reach that goal? Anytime you like, comment, or share a post from our page you help to get more friends for the sanctuary, and we can always use more friends! I’m making it a personal goal to reach 10,000 likes by the end of the 100 Happy Days. Even if it means I have to hunt down another 300 friends just to make it! But something tells me that with all our wonderful and caring supporters, it won’t be too hard to get you all to share some of our posts and encourage yours friends to like the page.

Anyway, on to the most important part of this post—Foxie with a new troll! 🙂

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Annie and Missy: Now and Then

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While staff and volunteers were cleaning the greenhouse before breakfast this morning, Annie and Missy bided their time with a little wrestling.

And just because, here’s one of my favorite classic Annie and Missy play sessions from about five years ago.

Here’s to another five years of play faces and breathy laughter.

Close Your Eyes and Dream

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Sometimes I can hardly believe that this dream of Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest has really come true, and these seven chimpanzees, on June 13th, are going to celebrate six years of a new life of peace that they never could have dreamed was possible. Dreaming is a beautiful thing.

Foxie:

Foxie sleeping

 

Annie:

annie eyes closed

 

Burrito:

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Jody:

Jody sleeping

 

Negra:

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Missy (I had to look really hard to find a photo of Missy sleeping):

missy in the tire

 

Jamie:

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close up of Jamie with eyes closed

 

Friendships

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It’s Friend Friday! Okay, well, we may have made that up last week—but it turns out that it actually is a thing! So, we thought we’d keep the trend going and post about some friendships today.

This morning I got a video of rambunctious play between Foxie, Diana, and Burrito. At one point, Burrito turned toward Foxie and they started to play with each other. This is really important for their bonding, and we as caregivers tend to take a step back and let them play on their own. You’ll see in the video that Diana did just that. Later on, Jody joined in too, and started to play tug with Foxie. Foxie looked toward Diana to keep playing with her, but Jody was so insistent that Foxie play with her that Diana encouraged Foxie to direct her attention back to Jody.

This is a little bit longer than the videos I usually post, but the whole thing was so great I had a hard time cutting anything out. Enjoy, and please share on social media with the hashtag #FriendFriday!

Choice

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The chimpanzees spend a lot of time in the doorway that leads from the greenhouse to Young’s Hill, deciding whether they want to go outside. Sometimes they decide against it and opt to stay in the sunny greenhouse or hang out in the indoor playroom. But I think these moments of choice are just as vital to captive chimpanzees as fresh air and sunshine and room to run.

This morning I’ve seen Negra sit in the doorway to Young’s Hill several times, taking in the view of the hill and pondering. She hasn’t yet ventured out, but I imagine that seeing two acres of green grass in front of her is something that she never imagined during her decades in a lab cage.

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