Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
Today is Meg Lunnum’s birthday and her last day of work before retirement, and she has sponsored the day to celebrate. What a cause for celebration! Meg supports Negra through the Chimpanzee Pal program. We’ll make sure Negra gets lots of peanuts and lettuce (her favorites!) today in your honor, Meg.
Happy birthday and congratulations!
I sometimes think it is really interesting to look back at the photos of the chimps’ first few days in sanctuary. It’s shocking how much they have changed. Here is a picture of Missy in June 2008:
And here is one from earlier this month:
One of my favorite things about the Cle Elum Seven is how almost everyone is really good friends. We tend to focus on BFF’s Annie and Missy a lot because they are pretty much inseparable, but there are lots of other people that seem to be pretty close, based on the amount of time they play with one another, groom, or have other interactions. If I had to guess based on my observations, I would say (aside from the Annie/Missy duo), Missy is good friends with Negra, Foxie and Burrito; Burrito is good friends with Foxie, Negra, and Missy; Negra is good friends with Foxie, Missy, and Burrito; Jamie is good friends with Foxie; and Jody is good friends with Foxie and Negra (I’ve seen a lot of play between Negra and Jody lately!). Annie’s world still revolves around Missy, but she does occasionally play with Foxie and Negra, so I think she would probably call them good friends too. If you haven’t noticed, Ms. Foxie is a popular lady!
Today I caught Foxie being super goofy all by herself (which is really not all that uncommon) but it wasn’t long before someone had to join in.
I just happened to notice that Burrito has 996 “likes” on Facebook! Let’s get him to over 1000! It shouldn’t be hard with an adorable video like the one below. “Like” or share this blog post with your Facebook friends and suggest they “like” Mr. B, if for no other reason, because his ears wiggle when he chews, and who can resist that?
Recently I was looking back at some old blog posts written by Diana and J.B. before the chimpanzees arrived in Washington. In this post, Diana describes Jamie after meeting her for the first time during a visit to the laboratory. It struck me how accurate Diana’s first impressions turned out to be. Five years later, Jamie still demands our time, energy, and creativity to keep her satisfied. It is sometimes hard to know what she’s going to like, but choice is essential. Diana also correctly predicted that we’re always happy to indulge.
After we clean the playroom each morning, we put out clean blankets and a heaping basket of enrichment. Jamie’s routine is to first gather any boots, then stroll around checking out the rest of the toys to see if anything is of interest. Today she came across this loofah and gave her face a quick scrub.
It’s a good thing the Cle Elum Seven like to eat snow so much, because we’ve got a lot of it!
We’ve been putting snow in the kiddie pool and other large tubs and containers on a pretty regular basis, and it keeps the chimps happy for hours. Today, I walked into the chimp area and found that Missy had grabbed a large handful and taken it upstairs to enjoy by the window.
She may have been sitting in the sunshine, but with eating all that snow she was obviously still cold. She was shivering quite a bit and used this washcloth to dry her hands off.
Jody was laying next to her in her nest. You can’t tell but she had a mouthful herself.
Later, Missy went to enjoy some snow with her best friend Annie
and while she was gone, Negra had taken over Missy’s pile of snow
it wasn’t long before Missy joined her
About a month ago we updated our Amazon wishlist and added bright colored pens for Jamie. Several people have sent some (thanks so much!!) and she has been so excited about them!! The other day, she was asking for a pen and I went and got her a couple of the colored ones and a canvas. She was literally jumping up and down when she saw what I had for her and drew a pretty elaborate drawing (albeit on the back of the canvas 🙂 ) She’s not always interested in drawing, though when she is, she’s very meticulous about it. Everything has to be in the right place – not just the lines she draws, but the paper and pens, as well.
Here’s a piece we recovered from the Playroom the other day. Like in the story above, I brought her a piece of canvas to draw on but she found what she thought was a much better medium for her masterpiece. It was a sign I had put on the enrichment to remind the morning crew to put all the troll dolls in piles.
Thanks so much to all who have re-inspired Jamie’s artistic side!
