Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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Brandon Wood’s Fundraising for Chimps

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You may recognize the name Brandon Wood or Make a Chimp Smile from previous posts or from other organizations. He’s truly an inspiration to me and to anyone who knows about him.

Brandon is always busy helping chimpanzees. Recently he’s been busy sending out letters to representatives and the president, encouraging them to support the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act. And now he’s doing a fundraiser for the Cle Elum Seven through his Etsy shop. He has really cool “chimp tags” and earth-friendly tote bags for sale, with proceeds going to Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest.

Show your support of Brandon and his work to help chimpanzees by shopping in the Make a Chimp Smile Etsy store and following his blog at makeachimpsmile.blogspot.com.

Here’s a photo of Brandon that I borrowed from his blog. He’s wearing and holding the chimp tags that he made to support great apes:

Brandon

Thank you for all you do, Brandon!

 

A rarity

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I’m pretty sure our camera was experiencing cuteness overload on Halloween. The following is a clip of some more of that cuteness I caught just before letting the chimps into the Playroom for their party. Jody and Negra rarely play, and certainly not with each other, so not only was it super cute, but it was a rare sight to see too!

Today on Young’s Hill

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I put out a lettuce forage and everybody—even Negra and Burrito—spent some time on the hill today, despite it being pretty cold out. I didn’t get a photo of everyone, but here’s a few shots from this afternoon:

Snuggle Up

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The CSNW chimps have a love/hate relationship with stuffed animals. Sometimes they like to tear apart stuffed animals—maybe to use their stuffing for bedding, or just for fun. Other times, they like to play with them or even cuddle with them, like Jamie did the other day:

 

Update: how you can help chimpanzees

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For Seattleites and other Washingtonians who missed the talk on Wednesday, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has posted information about how you can help chimpanzees by contacting Senator Patty Murray. Time is of the essence, so do this today. Find all the info you need here (including a link for those who live outside of Washington): http://www.pcrm.org/email/murray_letter.html

For those who did come to the talk – thank you! It was great to see both familiar and new faces. As we said on Wednesday, we are hopeful that biomedical experimentation on chimpanzees in the U.S. can end soon. Jody’s son Levi and all of the chimpanzees still used as experimental subjects need your voices to make this happen.

PCRM’s Research Policy Specialist Noelle Callahan and Director of Public and Government Affairs Elizabeth Kucinich visited the sanctuary yesterday. Normally shy, Burrito spent the entire visit staring at Elizabeth Kucinich. I do believe he’s in love.

In the photo below, left to right, is Sarah, Noelle Callahan, me and Elizabeth Kucinich.

Time on the hill and relatives

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We have had pretty sunny weather lately, but it’s getting colder and colder these days (we even have snow in the forecast!) so the chimps have been spending less and less time on Young’s Hill, but that does not mean that they don’t want the option! As I type, Jody is blocking the door in the raceway, even though no one, including her, has had any interest in going out there for at least the last hour. It’s all about choices around here, so I’ll give her as much time as she needs.

Here are a few photos from the last couple of days of folks enjoying the hill. I’m pretty much addicted to taking photos of people out there. I still can’t get over it.

Missy:

Annie:

Foxie has been getting more comfortable and ambitious on the hill these days:

as is Burrito:

Speaking of Burrito, I recently learned that Burrito has a half brother, Clay, who lives at Save the Chimps in Florida. Clay and Burrito have the same father, Mack, who passed away at Save the Chimps a little over a year ago, and Clay’s mother is none other than our Jody! One of our former volunteers, Janie, is working at Save the Chimps now and reported that Clay has many of the same mannerisms as Jody and Burrito, including Mr. B’s signature always-pilo erect hair (pilo erect is the technical term for when your hair stands on end). Check out Clay’s profile on the Save the Chimps website. To me, he looks almost exactly like Burrito with Jody’s almond eyes. The last photo on Clay’s page is a photo of his profile. I found the following older photo of Burrito for comparison.

Happy faces

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Did I mention that I love Jamie-ween’s Hallo-Birthday at CSNW? As if The Great Pumpkin and all the treats in the Playroom weren’t enough, volunteers Stephanie and Katelyn carved mini pumpkins and filled them with various fruits and veggies (cucumbers, strawberries, cherry tomatoes, etc) for the chimps’ lunch forage in the greenhouse. I think the chimps were already stuffed at that point, but they enjoyed them none the less! Needless to say, no one, not even Burrito, was interested in dinner.

The carved mini pumpkins:

If you take a closer look at the photo above, you might noticed that one of the pumpkins has a “CS” on it. And you may notice that in the photo below, Burrito’s carved pumpkin has a “W” on it. It was impossible to really get a good photo of the whole thing, but it says CSNW. Stephanie is so creative.

They also carved faces into melons:

Jamie:

Jody:

Foxie looks like she’s mimicking the face of hers

What a great day. Thanks so much to Stephanie, Katelyn, Tamela, Dick and Robbi for all the awesome gifts and decorations for the party and to all of those who donated in honor of Jamie’s big day! You guys are the BEST!