Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
Happy Valentine’s Day! Chimp lover and mama extraordinaire Adrienne sponsored today in honor of Joey, Jakob and Billie Joe with this sweet note: “I love the Cle Elum 7 and want to honor my own family along with them on Valentine’s Day.” Jody is our resident mama here at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, having given birth to nine babies in her time in research. Here she is below with a chimp favorite fitting for today – pomegranate!
Volunteer Deborah sponsored today in honor of her husband, CSNW Board Vice President Bruce Wagman. Bruce works tirelessly for all animals – the Cle Elum Seven of course, but also horses, dogs, cats, farm animals, and countless others, not to mention the “Wagmanagerie” of cats and dogs who live at the beach with Bruce and Deborah. Deborah loves you for all your hard work, Bruce, as do the rest of us here at the sanctuary! Have a happy Valentine’s Day Eve!
I can’t believe it’s already almost half-way through February! That means Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, and we have a super spiffy card you can send to your special someone. Just make a donation in honor of your Valentine before noon tomorrow and they’ll get a nice “It’s Good to Be Loved” card. (Check out this morning’s newsletter for more info).
Here’s some pictures of the chimps enjoying a pomegranate forage the other day:
Negra:
Foxie:
Annie:
Burrito often bites on something when he’s feeling playful. Here he’s doing his best to charm me into playing with him while I’m trying to take photos.
Pamela Miller sponsored today for her sister Linda. Pam says that Linda has a newfound interest in animal welfare, and we can’t think of any better ambassadors for the cause than the Cle Elum Seven. Welcome aboard, Linda!
Now that the snow has melted and the sun has returned, the chimpanzees have been really enjoying being outside on Young’s Hill. This morning we witnessed an impressive burst of activity. I can imagine how good it must feel to them to be able to stretch their legs.
At CSNW, we follow the philosophy that the chimpanzees are in captivity not by choice, and we see it as our duty to let them live their lives out in the best possible way. Essentially, we see ourselves as servants. We clean their enclosures, we serve them their meals, and we play games that cater to what they like best. For instance, I heard Sarah had a box with trolls in it on her head the other day. Anything to make Foxie laugh! And last week, I heard that JB wore some cowgirl boots for Jamie.
On Monday I posted a photo of Jackie serving dinner to the chimps on our Facebook page. It made me realize that we don’t really post about their normal food service—when we post about food it is typically because of a big fun forage. Forages are more similar to how chimps would find food if they were in Africa, but we don’t do a forage for every meal mainly because we want to make sure everyone is getting enough food. Since they aren’t in the wild and aren’t able to continually forage, they depend completely on us to make sure they get their yummy fruits and veggies. Sometimes we make a prepared cooked dish, like oatmeal, rice, or pancakes. They love prepared meals but they are perfectly happy with just fresh produce which is the healthiest option anyway, so that is usually what they get.
For breakfast, we serve a fruit smoothie with ingredients that change daily but always include protein powder. We cut up a couple different fruits and also have a bowl full of nuts as an appetizer. They also get multi-vitamins, probiotics, and fiber at breakfast. Lunch is fresh veggies—usually about 3 or 4 veggies each. Dinner is either a prepared meal accompanied by a fruit and/or veggie, or more often just fresh produce. I like to do a mix of fruit and veggies at dinner, but it doesn’t really matter too much. We cut all the produce into pieces that fit nicely through the caging, and the chimps usually take the pieces to their hands or straight to their mouth. Smoothie and other drinks are served by pouring from a cup straight to their mouth. (This video shows a little bit of the breakfast routine.)
Below are some pictures of dinner tonight.
Negra getting pear to her mouth:
Annie getting pear to her hand:
Jamie getting orange to her mouth:
Missy getting onion to her hand:
Jamie getting banana to her mouth (and Missy enjoying hers in the background):
Foxie getting onion to her mouth:
