I know you all are anxiously awaiting photos – and I promise to post some more tonight. Right now J.B. and Keith are serving dinner, and I’m in the kitchen listening to very content sounds as J.B. gives out fresh peppers, carrots and apples. I’m preparing oatmeal – the Cle Elum Seven’s first cooked meal in their new home! Diana
chimps
Cle Elum Seven home at last!
All seven chimpanzees, now to be known as the Cle Elum Seven, are safe in their new sanctuary home! The transfer went incredibly smoothly and the chimpanzees are very calm and clearly happy to be here. Negra, Burrito, Missy, Annie, and Jamie have been taking turns looking out the window (Negra seems to dominate that space). They’ve been playing with each other and eating the fresh fruit that was donated this morning. You might see the chimpanzees on King 5 or Komo 4 tonight if you’re in Seattle or KAPP 35 in Yakima! And the story of their arrival will be showing up in various newspapers too. This photo, though, says it all.
Twas the Night Before Freedom
It’s 8pm on Thursday night, and I’m so excited to share the latest report on the “Freedom Van,” as one of our favorite people is calling it. We expect them to pull in tomorrow morning around 8:30am PT.
Things are so exciting around here! Amidst all the preparations for the chimpanzees (like sorting enrichment, chopping fruit, and organizing the kitchen) I keep thinking about what a new beginning tomorrow will be. It holds a lot of potential firsts for our seven new friends: first blankets, first smoothies, first oatmeal, first view of the beautiful Yakima River! But most importantly, the first day of freedom. We hope our new friends will never look back. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to tell them what’s in store? Stay tuned for more tomorrow!
Sarah
Housewarming, Four Day Countdown, Bizarre News?
Thanks so much to everyone who came to the Housewarming event on Saturday. We had a great turn-out and the chimpanzees received so much wonderful enrichment! I was overwhelmed by the well-wishes from the community, and it was great to celebrate with some who have been involved with the sanctuary since it was just an idea.
I heard from J.B. earlier today – he and Keith are at Buckshire and spent some time with the chimpanzees this afternoon. J.B. said all of the chimpanzees were in good spirits overall (he made sure to tell me how great Negra is, and how much she is going to enjoy her new home at the sanctuary). Everyone is eager to get the journey started! I’ll keep you all updated as I hear more – they will be leaving early in the morning tomorrow.
We’ve been getting some press lately, and this is my favorite – it’s categorized as “bizarre news”: ABC 12 story.
Seems pretty normal to me to be rescuing chimpanzees…
Diana
Visualizing Chimpanzees
J.B. and I are now in Washington having finally moved from New York State. After five days of driving, we were both really anxious to see the chimp house as soon as we got here. For the first time, I could really see the chimpanzees in the building. Before I could imagine it in a theoretical kind of way, but now that their house is getting closer to completion, I could actually see Negra in front of the window on the loft, and I could see Burrito swinging from a firehose attached to the wide bridge that now spans the playroom. And I could see Jody walking out of the building to the outdoor area for the first time.
Keith and the solid and incredible group of volunteers who have helped create this building from scratch have put so much thought into it and have labored so hard, and I could finally see the chimpanzees appreciating all of that work. The Buckshire Seven arrive in 28 days. It’s hard to believe that in less than one month all of these images that I saw in my mind will be a reality! It will be so great to fill the website with photos and videos of the chimpanzees and be able to tell stories about them everyday. Stay tuned – it’s only a short wait now.
Diana
Should chimpanzees wear dresses?
We received the following question from a donor: I was looking at your wish list and I have a question: what are the clothes, hats, and shoes for? I assume the other stuff is all for the chimps or facility, but do they dress up in people’s clothes?
Good question! Those items must seem like very strange requests. The purpose of giving captive chimpanzees ‘human items’ is to alleviate boredom. Chimpanzees are extremely intelligent and curious and, of course, are not meant to live in captivity. In the wild they travel great distances each day, forage and sometimes hunt for food, manufacture and use tools, build nests to sleep in at night, defend their territory from neighboring groups… the list of complicated behaviors goes on and on. The #1 challenge of caring for captive chimpanzees is figuring out how to keep their minds active – because they can get extremely depressed when they don’t have enough to do.
Because chimpanzees who have been raised in captivity cannot be released into the wild, we must do whatever we can to make their environment complicated and interesting. Giving them access to human items is a great way to do so. Most captive chimpanzees have been raised either with or by humans, so objects like shoes and clothing are familiar to them. Some chimpanzees actually like to put clothing on (probably because they’ve seen humans do it and they are imitating) but most often they will use clothing to build nests. Free-living chimpanzees create nests in the trees out of branches and leaves and this seems to be an innate behavior because captive chimpanzees do it as well, but with blankets, sheets, clothing… any fabric they have access to, really. Different types, colors, and sizes of clothing gives them more variety for nest-building.
Of course, it’s important to distinguish between giving chimpanzees access to human items and forcing them to use human items, as we often see in entertainment situations. People often think it is funny or cute to see chimpanzees wearing clothing, and this is a perspective that we DO NOT take. But we do believe that we are obligated to give them access to any (safe) items that have been known to alleviate boredom in other captive chimpanzees.
Hello world!
Welcome to the Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest blog! We’re excited to be blogging and can’t wait to keep everyone updated with the latest and greatest news from the Sanctuary. So stay tuned, once we figure out how to use this thing, we’ll have lots of updates and news to share.
