Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Cle Elum 7

Negra approaches her cabin

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As J.B. mentioned in yesterday’s blog, Jackie and I caught Negra approaching her new cabin. Unfortunately I didn’t have our camera on me and didn’t want to miss the shot—so this was taken on my phone. I apologize that it is not the best quality and the chimps are pretty small. But, it is super awesome to see Negra sizing up her cabin and getting reassurance from Foxie and Jody. At one point all seven chimps were in the shot. I thought that was also super awesome so I took a screen shot and labeled all the chimps so you can see them all at once.

I can’t wait until Negra makes it all the way inside the cabin!

 

Take Action Tuesday: How orangutans are affected by the food and personal care products we buy

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Last week we discussed issues that face free-living chimpanzees (and also the other two African apes, gorillas and bonobos). Today I want to take action on a hot topic: palm oil. Free-living orangutan populations are only found on the small islands of Borneo and Sumatra. Since that climate is also really great for palm plantations, which produce palm oil, much of the orangutan habitat has been ripped apart for these plantations. Palm oil is found in almost everything these days—a lot of our food is full of it as well as bath and body products. If the average American opened their cupboards I would guess the majority of the products they have contain palm oil. Watch this great episode of NBC’s Rock Center that discusses the issue in depth.

What can we do? It’s pretty hard to avoid palm oil, but read the labels and choose products that don’t have palm oil over others that do. As the Rock Center article and video mention, the one section of forest known as Tripa has had one company’s permit revoked after an investigation began about the illegal slash and burn agriculture. However, there are still other companies operating in Tripa. Sign this petition to put pressure on the Indonesian government to Save Tripa and the orangutans that live there!

And, since we all really love our vegan butter (which usually contains palm oil), Diana and JB looked up some alternate butter recipes so we could start reducing the amount of palm oil we buy. After doing a small taste test, this is the one that staff decided we liked the best, however we used guar gum instead of xantham powder, and added extra salt.

photo courtesy of The Orangutan Project’s Facebook page

The Lone Ranger

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It seems like just yesterday that Young’s Hill was only weeks old and many of the chimpanzees were still finding their own comfort level with the wide open spaces. Missy and Jamie took to the hill right away, but everyone else took their time getting adjusted. In the beginning, Annie would sit in the greenhouse and anxiously bounce her feet while waiting for her best friend Missy to return from her adventures outside. After awhile, Annie would venture out with Missy (and only with Missy) but wouldn’t leave Missy’s side. I remember one day early on when Annie and Missy had walked about a third of the way up the hill and were foraging in a patch of grass near a climbing structure. After awhile Missy started to head down the hill toward the greenhouse, but Annie was so immersed in her foraging that she didn’t notice. When she finally looked up and realized she had been left behind, she hightailed it down the hill toward the building, running faster than I had ever seen her move.

But it seems all she needed was a little time, because these days we spot Annie spending a considerable amount of solo time on the hill. In fact, she looks like she belongs out there.

“Oh no!” Laundry basket keep away

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Normally we don’t give the chimps laundry baskets, not because they are unsafe (because they aren’t) but because we need them to do all the laundry, to dry all the washed toys, and to have a spot for the day’s enrichment. So, we reserve them for human use only, and the chimps understand that. If they ever get their hands on something they “aren’t supposed to have,” they think it’s pretty funny. Especially Foxie:

 

Happy Birthday, Jim Spencer!

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Today is sponsored by Audrey Spencer in honor of her husband Jim’s birthday. Jim and Audrey are longtime and devoted supporters of the Cle Elum Seven. It’s hard to think of a major construction project on the sanctuary grounds that Jim hasn’t been involved in, from the enrichment shed to the greenhouse to Young’s Hill to Diana’s new storage shed for fundraising event supplies.  Quite literally, Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest would not be what it is without Jim.

Happy Birthday, Jim, from Burrito and from all of us!