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chimps

Lasting Impressions

March 16, 2024 by Sabrina

One of our blog followers inquired about whether any of our team members sport chimpanzee-inspired tattoos. Indeed, we do! Our tattoos vary widely in design, from minimalist line sketches of chimps to intricate portraits, as well as impressions of a chimp’s footprint or symbols that evoke memories of a particular chimpanzee.

Featured below, you’ll find a collection of chimpanzee-themed tattoos that our staff have adorned themselves with, each with its own unique backstory and significance.

 

A boot for Jamie :

“The boot represents Jamie’s affinity for cowboy boots and the time I get to spend with her walking around the hill. Some of my favorite memories with her are going for walks. The tattoo also is for my dad who passed away and he loved western movies.” – Caregiver Kelsi

Annie (Grace):

“It’s funny that I love chimp feet because I loathe human feet” – Caregiver Grace

Jamie’s footprint (Grace):

Jody’s footprint (Grace):

Terry’s footprint (Grace):

 

Angelo (Chimp Haven):

“Angelo came from a lab all by himself, no group of chimps or even one friend was with him when he arrived to sanctuary. He was quickly introduced to a fairly large, stable group of 14 chimps and he really flourished. He found friends and worked his way up to be very close to the alpha, Hugo.

I always loved watching how how politically savvy this loner from the lab was when he was interacting with such a large group. He always seemed to know how to keep himself out of trouble and how to alleviate tension. I had the privilege of being his primary trainer for most of his time at Chimp Haven and he always got a big grin on his face when he knew I had come just for him. He would lead me to a secluded area of the habitat where he knew no one would find us and try to steal his snacks.

Angelo was not only one of the most intelligent chimpanzees I have ever encountered but also one of the most beautiful. As time went on, the group expanded to include 21 members. It was during this period of growth that Angelo’s health began to show signs of deterioration and he unfortunately passed away at the beginning of 2020.” – Caregiver Sabrina

Angelo:

Bubbles (Center for Great Apes)

Knuckles (Center for Great Apes):

Pansy (Chimp Haven):

“Pansy was one of the first chimps I met when I started working with chimpanzees at Chimp Haven. She had been moved from the lab only a month or two before I started and in that short amount of time she became notorious for her relentless poop throwing. When she came to Chimp Haven and for the first year or so of her residing at Chimp Haven, Pansy lived in a group of nine girls and she was clearly the one in charge of this girl gang.

This group of girls was the one I learned to shift around their enclosure for cleaning and each day, first thing in the morning, Pansy was ready for me. As soon as I would start to shut doors to close the group out of an area Pansy would come, she would seem to appear out of thin air, and she would fast ball poop at me. I’m not sure if she aimed for my throat or she was just lucky but she took my breath away daily. The negative behavior of poop throwing never made me walk away or give up on my shifting. This continued on for several months until one day she came up and stared me down with poop in hand.

In the end, we seemed to come to a truce this day and instead of the usual throat punch, she threw the poop softly on my boot. The truce did not extend to any other caregivers and we soon came to realize that Pansy always seemed to have fecal ammo…because she would store a piece on her back, near her shoulder that she could grab at a moments notice. We called it her shoulder holster.

Through Pansy, I learned the virtues of patience and resolve in the care of chimpanzees who have retired from laboratory life. Each arrives bearing unique histories and the scars of past traumas. In the sanctuary, our number one duty is to demonstrate to the chimps that they have the ability to make choices, and to assure them that we, their caregivers, are dedicated allies in their journey.

Unfortunately, Pansy passed in 2019 but she’s always with me still.” – Caregiver Sabrina

Pansy:

Whiskey (Chimp Haven):

“I have a portrait of Whiskey, my very best friend. Whiskey was a wonderful, sassy, smart, and opinionated chimpanzee. He quickly stole my heart with his bigger than life personality, his silly side, his quiet breathy laughter, and by choosing me as one of the few humans he allowed in his circle. He made me laugh every day with his antics, whether it was throwing a scarf over his shoulder while he was on the move, playing chase with those stompiest of stompy flat feet of his, or panting at me and staring sweetly into my eyes after just having been excessively (and perfectly, in my opinion) sassy to one of his other caregivers. His best friend was Donovan, the alpha of his group who he came to sanctuary with. Whiskey sadly passed away in April of 2020. I miss him dearly, and am grateful to have a reminder of him always with me, as well as an excuse to talk about him whenever people ask about my tattoo.” – Caregiver Ellen

 

 

Filed Under: Chimpanzee, Sanctuary Tagged With: chimpanzee sanctuary, chimps, Sanctuary

Thankful Every Day

November 28, 2023 by Grace

It’s the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, which means… it’s Giving Tuesday! 🙂

If you haven’t heard of it before, Giving Tuesday is an internationally recognized day of giving as it aims to promote generosity as a part of every day life. Which, if you ask me, is just a sincerely lovely & comforting thought.

We rely on the generosity of you, our supporters, to do the work we do. All our residents deserve sanctuary and you are what makes that happen. We are grateful, every day, for each of you.

If you find yourself wanting to participate in Giving Tuesday, I would encourage you to donate by clicking the link here. There are so many ways to donate- from sponsoring a day of sanctuary, to donating directly to our produce fund, becoming a Chimp or Bovine Pal to one of our residents, or donating stocks– I can confidently tell you that every donation is felt and appreciated. Today, and every day, no donation is too small.

There are also the non-monetary ways to support the sanctuary, which I feel like sometimes get overlooked but are just as important! Sharing our posts, for example, to your social media or with your friends and family help us increase our reach. Which, in turn, helps us connect and share our residents stories with more people. That is so, so important to us. We owe it to our residents to share their names & stories as far & wide as we can. A simple share helps us do just that!

On that note, I hope you enjoy the short & sweet video today of best chimp friends Missy and Annie. 🙂

Annie, from the photo vault, during a sweet summer forage:

Also, in the honor of giving thanks, look at this amazing pile of donations from a week or so ago! Thank you so much to everyone who donates items from our wish lists or who sends us chimp-approved items. We are currently adding items that we need for our upcoming Christmas celebrations to our wish lists, so please check it out if you’re interested in helping us celebrate! 🙂

Filed Under: Annie, Chimpanzee, Friendship, Latest Videos, Missy, Most Viewed Videos, Sanctuary, Thanks Tagged With: Annie, chimpanzee sanctuary, Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, chimps, Missy, Play, Sanctuary

Wednesdays Book Club

January 18, 2023 by Kelsi

Though Jamie and Cy may be in different groups they had the same idea today, Wednesday is for reading.

Jamie’s current must reads are:

1. I’m Lucy by Marian Brickner – (a classic)

And a sequel to the Lucy bonobo book

2. Bonobo Lucy Grows up by Marian Brickner

Cy’s new favorite read is a magazine:

¡Hola!

Other than book club, it was a pretty quiet day, which is why it was the perfect day for reading!

Cy could not put this magazine down:

Jamie with both Lucy books:

Bonus photos!

Burrito:

Rayne:

Annie and Missy playing on the bench in front room 2:

And I will leave you with a series of Negra photos:

Filed Under: Annie, Burrito, Cy, Enrichment, Jamie, Latest Videos, Missy, Negra, Play, Rayne, Sanctuary Tagged With: Annie, Burrito, chimp enrichment, chimpanzee, chimpanzee sanctuary, Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, chimps, Cy, Enrichment, Jamie, Missy, Negra, Rayne, Sanctuary

Nonstop Christmas Fun!

December 28, 2022 by Kelsi

Well, what an amazing Christmas it has been! The chimps are still discovering new enrichment every day, like Foxie with the Anna doll from Frozen. While others, like Burrito, are still having fun with items they received before the big Christmas party. Words cannot express our gratitude for all of our supporters, we would not be able to do any of this without you!

This morning Cy’s group received access to the Chute and to say Burrito’s group were excited would be an understatement! The seven were all lined up by the window hooting and hollering, but Burrito especially took great interest! He almost missed breakfast! It had been a little while since the group of nine had received access to the Chute, because it has been so cold at the sanctuary.

I suppose I will share with you all a condensed story about the chaos that unfolded last week! We received quite a bit of snow in the past couple of weeks and it also became extremely cold, getting as cold as -5 degrees. So cold that last Wednesday our well water became frozen.  Our co-directors J.B. and Diana had left for a quick and very deserved trip to go see family over the holiday, however with all these winter storms their flight back got canceled. We went to the store and grabbed lots of water to use for cleaning and for drinking water, but we had to use the water sparingly because we had a few more days of  this extremely cold weather. Thankfully, all of this did not affect the chimps and they were none the wiser- we made sure that they had plenty of water, food, clean blankets, and most importantly a clean enclosure! We had a Christmas miracle because on Christmas eve it finally warmed up and the water started to work again! Finally, we have caught up on laundry and mostly decompressed from the chaos that has ensued. We are sooooo grateful to have J.B. and Diana back safely and that the water is flowing again!

Burrito watching his neighbors:

Cy enjoying some green beans:

Sweet Rayne:

Filed Under: Burrito, Cy, Dolls, Enrichment, Foxie, Jamie, Latest Videos, Play, Rayne, Sanctuary Tagged With: Burrito, chimp, chimpanzee, Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, chimpanzees, chimps, Cy, Foxie, Jamie, Play, Rayne, Sanctuary

Winter is Here to Stay

November 30, 2022 by Kelsi

Today was a quiet snowy day at the chimp house. The humans were busy shoveling snow and cleaning, while the chimps ate snow and napped in their cozy nest! Everyone was so content grooming or napping that it was hard to capture photos of them. So please enjoy these photos of some cozy chimps I was able to capture. Speaking of cozy, today is the last day of our Comfort & Joy auction! The auction will be wrapping up at 6 pm PT so make sure to check on your bids or bid one last person out! We will be starting to slowly add Christmas gifts for the chimps on our wish-list soon, so be on the look out!

We got a little bit of snow last night and this morning…

Burrito sat still long enough to snap these photos:


The ever so handsome Cy:

Neggie’s silhouette eating snow:

Negra can’t wait for all of her new blankets from the Comfort & Joy auction!

Jamie getting a little shut eye:

Jamie nesting, Neggie style (blanket over head):

Mave in the middle of a big grooming party in the green house:

Filed Under: Burrito, Cy, Jamie, Mave, Negra, Nutmeg, Sanctuary Tagged With: chimp, chimp sanctuary, chimpanzee, chimpanzee sanctuary, Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, chimps, Cy, Jamie, Mave, Negra, Sanctuary

Burrito’s Sense of Humor

November 23, 2022 by Kelsi

Burrito is a funny guy! He is always making us laugh, but from time to time his group doesn’t always think he is so funny. For example, in this video Burrito may or may not have gotten a little too wild for Foxie’s taste!

As you can see, Burrito is having so much fun playing with the giant stuffed bear. Make sure to check out the Comfort & Joy auction! There are a lot of great Squishmallows I know Burrito would love!

Please enjoy this silly video and some bonus photos!

The rare close up of Missy:

Beautiful Negra:

Jamie eating snow:

A series of Foxie photos:

 

Filed Under: Burrito, Enrichment, Foxie, Jamie, Latest Videos, Missy, Negra, Play, portrait, Sanctuary Tagged With: Burrito, chimp, chimp enrichment, chimp sanctuary, chimpanzee, chimpanzee sanctuary, Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, chimpanzees, chimps, Foxie, Jamie, Negra, Play, Sanctuary

The VIP Lounge

November 7, 2022 by Anthony

The chimpanzees spend more time resting and socializing in the heated indoor areas as the weather gets wetter and colder.

We’ve recently been focusing much of our content on the chimps’ outdoor enclosures, especially Young’s Hill and The Bray. Large outdoor habitats are irreplaceable because they provide chimpanzees with unique opportunities to engage in “natural” behaviors such as climbing, foraging, and patrolling as a group. The greenhouse-type enclosures, including the new Riverview and Oakwood Greenhouses, also have certain characteristics that the chimps can take full advantage of at their leisure.

Even so, chimpanzees living in sanctuary also need clean, climate-controlled, enriched indoor spaces. These are locations where they can be cozy, entertained and secure, regardless of the conditions outside. It would be easy to look at the artificial interiors and think that these enclosures are inferior to the outdoor ones, but the chimpanzees don’t seem to think so. Instead, the residents seem to utilize the various spaces differently so that together they provide one expansive, complex, multi-functional home.

Sofia highlighted the indoor front rooms in her September post “Back to Front Room 7” and Anna wrote about them again in last week’s post “Small space, big fun“. I thought it might be fun to share some additional video clips of the chimpanzees enjoying that same space today!

Filed Under: Chimpanzee, Enrichment, Grooming, Latest Videos, Play Tagged With: building, chimps, Cy, dora, enclosure, front rooms, Gordo, Grooming, Honey B, lounging, Lucky, Mave, Nesting, Play, Rayne, relaxing, Sanctuary, slinky, Terry

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