Cle Elum Seven

Games with Friends

September 15, 2014 by Elizabeth

Foxie and caregiver Katelyn played a fun game of slap-the-window today.

It’s important to have priorities in life, and the chimpanzees at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest are good at deciding what is top priority (usually food) and what is a close ranking second, as you’ll see in the video below.

Here’s what the back of the lower mount for the GoPro camera looks like. I caught this photo last week of Annie standing next to it. The steel mount, custom made by J.B., has a hinge and opens up to slip the camera in and then has a padlock to secure it.

Jody the Thinker

September 11, 2014 by Elizabeth

Annie’s 40th

September 10, 2014 by Debbie

We celebrated Annie’s 40th birthday today! Her exact birthday is unknown since she was captured in the wild, but her records indicate that she was born sometime in 1974, and today is the day we picked to celebrate it. Annie certainly doesn’t act 40 at all! She’s still very young at heart—she shows her playful side daily when wrestling with Missy or running around Young’s Hill.

We wanted to celebrate her special day with some of her favorites—green grass, beets, green onions, piñatas, buckets of water, shovels, and chow! Thanks to some supplies Lisa Stuverud brought us we had a fun colorful party with new enrichment, too. We set up a breakfast forage first, and then volunteer Becca served Annie’s favorite veggies at lunch.

Here’s the party setup:

I love this photo — you can see the juice from the tangerine spraying to the side! Good shot by Elizabeth.

Annie with a mouthful of chow (she loves to wadge chow!)

Annie loves green grass, so we picked some for her and included bunches of it in their breakfast forage:

Some of her favorite veggies are green onions and beets:

The other chimps enjoyed the party too! Burrito the charmer practically posed during the forage for this photo:

Everyone loved the fruit! Here’s Jamie:

Jody:

Foxie:

Missy loved the green grass:

And Jody ended up getting the piñatas (there was a Dora the Explorer piñata too, but that was torn up before we could snap a photo!)

Foxie got a new troll and some knuckle rubs from Diana, which made her laugh:

And Negra spent a lot of time in hard-to-see spots during the day, but I did get this picture of her beautiful relaxed face:

Happy 40th Birthday, Annie!

Negra playing chase

September 9, 2014 by Debbie

As many of you know, Negra isn’t the most active chimp. Her favorite activity is curling up in a nice big nest with a blanket over her head (second only to eating night bags!) Today, Diana got a special treat when Negra decided to play chase with her. Of course, Neggie’s version of chase was basically moving from one door to another door that is about five feet away — meanwhile Diana had to run all the way through the kitchen and to the other side of the building to meet her. This went on for a few rounds and I was wondering what was going on, but figured Diana was playing chase with Foxie or Missy, who are both known for their playfulness. But no, it was Negra! So I rushed to grab the camera, and only got the last bit of their chase bout. Annie got Negra’s attention and ran around with her for a little bit, which was also a treat to see. We love seeing the chimpanzees come out of their shells—even six years after they first arrived they still continue to surprise us.

Annie, believe it or not, is turning 40 tomorrow! I’m a little late on this request, but if you’re interested in sending Annie a few (belated) birthday gifts, check out our Amazon wishlist. I added some of the toys she likes the most (and have worn out, so we’d like some new ones!) plus there’s plenty of other supplies we need to keep Annie and the rest of the Cle Elum Seven living in a clean home and happy as can be. Based on the video above, I’d like to think we do a pretty good job at giving these deserving chimpanzees the best life possible. 🙂

We’ve got a fun party planned for Annie tomorrow, but here’s a picture of her to tide you over until then!

New Boot Protocol

September 7, 2014 by Elizabeth

When Jamie gets a new pair of boots, she likes to have a caregiver model them first. Here’s Debbie showing off new boots from Lisa Stuverud yesterday. (Jamie didn’t seem to mind that the boots were too small for Debbie.)

Then Jamie usually demands that the caregiver modeling the boots accompany her on a walk around Young’s Hill. When that’s done, Jamie’s ready for us to give her the boots. She spends some time inspecting them closely. Yesterday she even licked them.

Cowboy Party

September 6, 2014 by Elizabeth

What’s one way to make seven chimpanzees awfully happy? Throw a spontaneous party. Supporter Lisa Stuverud sent us a box of decorations and enrichment for a cowboy party (and of course we already had dozens of cowboy boots thanks to Jamie’s obsession), so we had everything we needed for a good time.

Jamie was the first into the greenhouse, and she was throwing back her first drink before most of the others even made it out the door.

She checked high and low for hidden treats. Here she’s getting ready to use a fire hose to swing up into one of the windowsills where we often hide food: