Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
We like a good excuse for streamers, pinatas, and forages here at Chimpanzee Sanctuary NW. Today was no exception and, although we were mostly winging it, it appears to have done the trick quite nicely according to the chimpanzees. In particular, they seemed to be especially pleased by the whole lemon and lime forage provided by caregiver Elizabeth! Here they are enjoying a colorful greenhouse breakfast for Cinco de Mayo.
Foxie:
Negra:
Annie:
Missy:
Burrito:
Jody:
Jamie:
Aside from working directly with and for the chimpanzees every day, the thing I love most about working for Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest is seeing how deeply people near and far care about the chimps – not just in the abstract, but as individuals. After decades of being treated as little more than faceless numbers, it’s incredibly heartwarming that people across the country and across the world love and appreciate Foxie for her love of troll dolls, Burrito for his epic food squeaks, and so on.
Last night’s Hoot! gala in Seattle was an amazing success and an absolute joy. People came to celebrate and support the chimps they love, or to acquaint themselves with the Cle Elum Seven for the first time. Check out the e-newsletter about the event that Diana sent out this morning here. (If you’re not yet signed up for our email list, you can do that here.) And be sure to watch the video that gala attendees saw at the event last night.
If you weren’t able to make it last night, you can still show your love for the chimps by donating here.
Today the chimpanzees are celebrating by enjoying the green grass and sunshine on Young’s Hill. After picking a couple of dandelions, Jody spent some time overseeing the unloading of the event supplies from the U-Haul.
A million thanks to everyone who helps us continue to care for the chimps we love so much.
Tonight is our very first Hoot! gala event and I’m so excited to see everyone. I hope you all are ready to Give a Hoot! tonight! And don’t worry, for those of you that aren’t able to make it to the gala, we are going to have an online auction later this summer so everyone can participate.
Yesterday I posted about Jamie’s huge paper nest, but I left out a couple photos that Elizabeth took that day. She captured Annie initiating some play by biting on the handrail of the stairs in the playroom, right above where Jamie was nesting. Missy couldn’t resist her invitation and of course started play slapping and wrestling immediately. They didn’t seem to mind that Jamie was trying to perfect her nest just inches away—and luckily, Jamie didn’t seem to be disturbed, either.
We’ve posted about the enrichment theme “lots of paper” before, but it never gets old with the chimps. They love it, so we try to work that theme into each month—so long as we have extra paper to spare. Yesterday we had plenty, including a bunch of paper from some boxes that were shipped from Amazon when people sent us supplies we needed from our wishlist. You probably didn’t know you were helping us stock the shelves AND enriching the chimps at the same time did you? 🙂
Jamie definitely appreciated the extra paper, and we threw in some crepe paper, toilet paper, and a big roll of red paper for additional nesting materials. She built the biggest paper nest I’ve seen! It was an all day project that she returned to a few times to perfect her comfy spot.
First, she started with the brown paper from the Amazon boxes and added the giant roll of red paper.
She abandoned it at one point (probably to go on a perimeter walk of Young’s Hill) and you can see just how elaborate it is:
Later she returned and added some toilet paper, which she reportedly had wrapped around her like a mummy but when the paparazzi (Elizabeth) arrived she quickly brushed it off herself. The toilet paper added a nice softness to the nest and she curled up with some boots to take a mid-day nap.
If there’s one thing that consistently makes for happy chimpanzees, it’s beautiful weather. We’re enjoying temperatures in the mid-70s in Cle Elum today, and everyone’s feeling carefree.
Foxie:
Jamie:
Annie:
We take so many photos that sometimes it’s hard to decide which ones to post on the blog, and so we have a collection of several that haven’t been posted before.
I found a few from the big Easter party last weekend that haven’t been shared yet. Take a look at the previous post to see how awesome their party was and set some context for these photos, and enjoy CSNW Easter 2.0!
Foxie:
Jamie:
Jody:
Negra:
The sun is simply splendid here in eastern Washington today and I had an urge to celebrate it. Brainstorming ideas, I resolved to put together some of the chimpanzees favorite things for an early morning partial breakfast forage on Young’s Hill. First, JB served fruits and smoothie in the greenhouse, then the chimpanzees foraged for iceberg lettuce and chow on the hill. The thing about spring here is that the weather can be, well, capricious, to say the least, with the trademark of a beautifully sunny day combined with decidedly chilly winds. While the chimpanzees were certainly enthusiastic about their good fortune they elected to enjoy it in the more agreeable, less windy, greenhouse. I can’t say that I blame them and they look pretty content with their haul.
Burrito:
Missy:
Negra:
Annie:
Foxie:
Jody:
There is no photographic evidence of Jamie because she chose to take her share off into the building to enjoy at her leisure without any social pressure. Nevertheless, I am sure she savored it to the fullest extent!
