Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
It’s a big day at the sanctuary today as we celebrate both Negra’s honorary 43rd birthday AND the chimpanzees’ 8th anniversary in their sanctuary home! And we’re so touched that our good friend, Kathleen Corby, chose to sponsor this very special day! Kathleen shared this beautiful message about today:
“I have to quote J.B. from his blog post (06/10/16) on Negra’s special day : “It’s often said that healing is not a matter of forgetting, but of accumulating new memories that, over time, crowd out the bad ones. Eventually, memories of courage and adventure push aside memories of fear and anxiety. Those memories will never be forgotten. But every time I see Negra absorbing the view from the top of Young’s Hill, I think of how far she’s come in these last eight years, and I hope that moment becomes yet another healing memory that pushes an old one further out of reach.” Dear Negra, I love you so. Eight years is such a short time to have come so very far. I am astounded and deeply touched each year by your brave awakenings. I could not do the same. The word “resilience” does not even come close to expressing the amazing capacity of love, strength, and forgiveness that lies within your heart. Today I celebrate all the positive, loving memories that have accumulated in your heart over your 8 years in sanctuary. Happy 43rd Birthday Queen Negra! XOXOXO (And Happy 8 Years CSNW!)”
Kathleen, thank you so much for welcoming the chimpanzees into your big, beautiful heart and for truly being part of their lives each day. What a gift to have you in the world. We truly appreciate all that you do for the chimpanzees and your sponsorship of this amazing day full of celebration, love, and home!
Happy Birthday, Queen Negra! And Happy Anniversary to Annie, Missy, Burrito, Jody, Foxie, Jamie and Negra, the seven people who are the heart and soul of CSNW!
Today marks the eighth anniversary of the arrival of the Cle Elum Seven chimpanzees–Annie, Burrito, Foxie, Jamie, Jody, Missy, and Negra–to Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest and a celebration of Negra’s 43rd birthday.
It’s so hard for me to believe that eight years have already passed since the chimps’ arrival, and it’s even harder for me to believe that Negra is eight years older than she was when the truck full of chimpanzees pulled up the sanctuary driveway on June 13, 2008.
Because this is such a nostalgic time for everyone who has been following the story of the chimpanzees at the sanctuary, and because so many people are relatively new followers, I thought it would be fun and informative to take this week to briefly chronicle some of the events of the last eight years, one year per day.
Of course I know you won’t want to miss the news of today’s big celebration, so we will be sharing that later today on the blog too. If you are subscribed to the e-newsletter, you will also be receiving an email today that celebrates Negra’s journey over the last eight years.
For now, here’s a glimpse of the first year of sanctuary for the Cle Elum Seven.
EVERYTHING was new to the chimpanzees.
From enrichment:
To the views out the windows:
To the changes in weather:
And the chimpanzees were new to us humans, too. Though we had met them at Buckshire before they came to the sanctuary, we didn’t have the chance to really get to know them until we spent time with them in their new home. We started to learn about their personalities and their likes and dislikes pretty quickly.
Here is one observation about Jamie and her intelligence a few days after the chimps arrived:
And of course the humans, and Foxie herself, discovered her lasting love of troll dolls during her first year of sanctuary, leading us to ask supporters for more troll dolls. None of us knew then how big her collection would become!
Foxie’s first troll doll:
Foxie demonstrating that troll dolls suit her fun-loving personality:
We were delighted to discover Burrito’s out-of-this-world food-squeaking:
Touched by Annie’s love of Missy:
And thrilled with Jody’s ability to relax:
Every day of the chimps’ first year in sanctuary was an incredible gift.
I’m not going to lie–we had some tough times as an organization as we were just getting our footing. There were stressful moments, to be sure, but it was so inspiring to have the opportunity to watch the chimpanzees learn more about their new home and themselves. And it was incredible to connect with other people who wanted to be a part of giving them that chance. This blog has played a big role in that process, and I’m grateful to everyone who has read it in the past and is reading it right now. Thank you!
It’s pretty thrilling to think that if you stick around you will also be a part of providing so many “firsts” for more chimpanzees who will be coming to Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest in the future.
If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you know a few things about Jamie–that she likes to patrol the outdoor area, that she likes to have the humans join her on the other side of the fence on these patrols, and that she often keeps the humans late at night in the summer by insisting that we do walk after walk until she is satisfied.
We don’t complain too often about these overtime duties because it makes Jamie happy and because it’s a beautiful time to be outside on the sanctuary property.
Last week, we had a heat wave that prevented the chimpanzees from spending a lot of time outside during the day, but it always gets cooler here at night, so Jamie simply waited until the temperature dropped to get her exercise for the day.
Sometimes, especially during the day, Jamie is very focused on the perimeter trail that she’s worn in the grass, and will follow this path at a fairly brisk pace as we walk on the trail on the other side.
Her dusk-walking tends to fulfill a completely different desire, though, and Jamie will often veer from the perimeter path and explore the climbing structures in the middle of a walk, often stopping to take in a view or rest for a bit. The new Twister structure is a favorite viewpoint of late.
Below are a few photos of her nighttime meanderings.
At the top of Twister:
After viewing the setting sun, she came down the hill and did some more meandering on the shaky bridge:
Balancing on the metal pole structure:
Finally choosing a cross-legged position to rest for a minute:
And moving along again:
Eventually heading back inside, quite satisfied:
Today the chimpanzees are celebrating a day of sanctuary gifted to them by Julie Olson in honor of her sister, Karen Olson, on her birthday! Julie shared this message about today:
“I am sponsoring a day for the chimps in honor of my sister Karen’s birthday. She is the biggest animal lover I know and has followed the Cle Elum 7 since they came to the sanctuary.”
Julie, thank you so much for giving such a compassionate gift for Karen and the chimpanzees! We are so grateful to you both for your support of the chimpanzees and for being part of making their lives in sanctuary better with each passing year.
Karen, we wish the same for you and hope this is your best birthday yet! Happy Birthday hoots from all of us at CSNW!!
Jody is amazing at celebrating each day as she sees fit:
Captivity. It’s been in the news a lot, and I know on a lot of our minds.
It is simply a fact of everyday life and work when your occupation is caring for chimpanzees in a sanctuary. We go to great lengths to ensure that the chimpanzees are unable to breach the barriers we have constructed to contain them, and while we do it for both their own safety and the safety of those on the other side of the barriers, it doesn’t change the reality of the situation–the steel caging, bullet-proof glass, electric fence, and many, many locks of which only the humans have the keys.
As a sanctuary, our aim is to attempt to right what we perceive to be a wrong and to give back some measure of what our species has taken from another species, but we don’t view this second chance for the chimpanzees living here as the ideal life, and our friends behind bars often remind us of this. A few years ago, I wrote about my perception of Jamie’s awareness of her own captivity in the context of the shift in how we as a society view what chimpanzees deserve and what our obligations are towards them. You can read that post here.
I am buoyed by the positive events that have occurred for chimpanzees just since writing that post three years ago. We are closer than ever – maybe we are even there – to the end of chimpanzee biomedical research in this country. How did we get here? How did we get to this moment in history where the practice of using chimpanzees in biomedical testing is widely seen as abhorrent from a society that thought it was entirely permissible and within our rights as humans to slaughter chimpanzee families, collect the infants, and ship them across the world to use them in experimentation? There are many specific answers to that question, but the general answer, I think, can be explained by a formula that applies to progress towards greater human rights as well: knowledge + people speaking out + time = societal shifts.
These shifts don’t happen overnight and they don’t happen without resistance. By definition, it takes the majority of people who held onto an “old way” of thinking to either no longer be a part of society or it takes individuals to change their own stance. We all know how stubborn our species is, so the former is often the key factor and is really built into the formula under “time.” But our modern age has given us the ability to gain information and collect knowledge in an instant, and we are quickly made aware of more people speaking out. This allows shifts to happen faster.
As uncomfortable and impassioned as some discussions can get around the practice of keeping great apes and other non-human animals in captivity, I choose to view it as very positive sign that these discussion are happening in a very public way. The proverbial and literal elephant in the room is being pointed out, making it almost impossible to ignore the bigger ethical questions of holding intelligent, highly social, long-lived species in captive environments, generation after generation. What truly justifies this activity?
The thing about societal shifts in thinking, though, is that when you’re in the middle of them, there will be individuals and institutions on both sides. Looking back at shifts that have happened in the past, it’s really difficult to understand how so many people were involved in something that is now viewed as unjust, but that’s the benefit of hindsight. There is no “new way” without an “old way” and the “old way” is something that the majority of people likely had few qualms about, but that doesn’t mean they had some sort of flaw in their character. I applaud the individuals and institutions that are at the forefront of rejecting old, unfair, and unjust ways of doing things, but I understand that some will invariably be slower to adjust–that’s all part of a shift.
Let’s keep talking. Let’s not be afraid of our convictions and our desire for a more just world. And let’s also remember that each of us have different levels of knowledge, exposure to different voices, and may have developed our opinions in a different period of time and societal-wide mentality than ourselves.
In the meantime, let’s be thankful, on behalf of seven chimpanzees in Cle Elum, Washington, that societies do indeed shift towards greater understanding and compassion, and it happens one person at a time. Though we are unable to give the chimpanzees true freedom, we can give them something closer to it than they’ve ever experienced before.
Here’s Missy and Annie enjoying the wild prickly lettuce that they harvested:
For lunch today, we set out a forage on Young’s Hill.
Life is so dramatically different for the Cle Elum Seven these days than it was just eight years ago. Gone are the days of climate-controlled, windowless buildings, hard surfaces, and cramped spaces. Life now is bright green grass, warm sun, gentle breezes, and roses for lunch.
Missy:
Jamie:
Negra:
Annie:
Foxie:
Burrito:
Jody:
