Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
Missy often shies away from the camera. Couple that with her super-fast pace chasing and silliness, and she sometimes becomes underrepresented in photos on the blog. So, for all you Missy fans, here are some photos I caught of her today hanging out in the greenhouse.
Having grown up in southern California, I don’t think I ever really appreciated spring until I moved to a part of the country with a real winter. It was only a few weeks ago that it was finally warm enough outside for me to open the windows in my apartment. That’s probably my favorite part of spring: the first dose of glorious, fresh air. I thought of the chimpanzees and how it wouldn’t be long before we would be able to open the barn doors in their playroom and let the warm air in. As Jackie said in this post, that opportunity came just the other day, and the chimps seemed to be just as grateful as I had been. Here’s some video from that day.
The other day it was finally warm enough that I could open the barn doors in the playroom. Because of the cold it’s been a while since we could do that, so the chimps were so excited! Everyone started pant hooting and ran over to enjoy the fresh air. Jody immediately began to build a giant nest using several blankets and a sleeping bag but alternated between nesting and chasing silly Annie and Missy around the playroom. Jamie put her hands in the kiddy pool and chased folks around with it. Everyone was super playful and goofy, and spent quite a bit of time hanging out and enjoying the sun and spring-like air.
Here are a couple of photos of Jamie relaxing in the green hand chair donated several months ago by volunteer Pam:
And Jody in her sleeping bag nest:
Happy Spring, everyone!
Highest quality nuts from NutsOnline.com
NutsOnline.com is a company that sells nuts and dried fruit and, lucky for us, they have lots of unsalted and unsweetened options. They support many different sanctuaries and animal organizations, and now, that list includes CSNW. We recently joined forces with NutsOnline.com and now they have a care package that is specifically designed for the Cle Elum Seven! The care packages are $28 and include 1 pound bags of Mixed Nuts (In Shell), Raw Pumpkin Seeds (In shell), Hard shell Pecans, Blanched Hazelnuts, White Popcorn Kernels, and Organic Tropical Dried Fruit Mix- all perfect ingredients for our Night Bags! These care packages are available anytime through this website, which can also be easily accessed through our wishlist.
Not long after the chimps arrived, supporter Tamela found an acrylic mirror that we hung on the playroom wall. It has gotten pretty scratched up in the last 2.5 years, so J.B. just recently replaced it with a new one. And not unlike her reaction when it was first hung in January of 2009, Jamie spent a good deal of time trying to figure out how to remove it.
Volunteers Stephanie and Kate came to the chimp house this morning armed with a bounty of goodies (edible and non-) for a party celebrating the arrival of spring!
It’s been a while since we had a Chimps’ Choice item, and we have an awesome idea!
We love to challenge the chimps with puzzles. Not to cause stress, of course, but to keep them stimulated and enriched. Jamie loves nothing more than a project but she’s so smart that it is difficult to come up with a project for her that actually challenges her. Something that would take me an hour to figure out, Jamie masters in less than 5 minutes. The puzzles that Cari donated the other day are just perfect and we would love to have more. The website has a variety of puzzles, but not all of them will work for us, so I added the specific ones we think will be best to our Amazon Wishlist. They are the PVC Puzzle, the hanging sliding feeder, the Forage Raisin Ball, and the Discovery Food Ball. All of these puzzles have a chain attached to them and hang on the outside of the caging. They encourage tool use and creative problem solving skills, and I suspect they will be just the thing to keep Jamie and the others enriched and occupied for years to come.
***Update: The company that sells these puzzles, AbsolutePrimate.com, has a $75 minimum, so if you would like to participate, instead of ordering them through the website, please send us a donation and we will order them. Be sure to mention Chimps’ Choice or puzzles in the gift note section.
