Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
Negra has always loved when her caregivers dance for her. She is great at finding the beat and grooving along with us. I personally don’t know where this came from but her passion for rhythm has sparked silliness and laughter in all of us to entertain her with our good and bad dance moves.
See that girl, watch her gleam, she’s our Dancing Queen!
A week ago, volunteer caregiver Krissy, had a very sweet moment with Terry during cleaning. While interacting with him through the mesh, she began dancing for him and he ended up joining her. I snagged the clips from our camera footage and it is enough to make your day! Enjoy 🙂
Lisa Stuverud has sponsored this day of sanctuary in memory of Linda Vizzare. This is the touching message that Lisa shared:
Linda is my sister-in-law and my “birthday buddy” for the last 37 years. She passed away November 20th, so April 4th is going to be my first birthday without her to celebrate with. I know she knows I miss her very much and one of the things I miss the most is how much she loved Burrito especially when he did his “happy dance” :-). During her illness we often talked about the chimpanzees, the caregivers and the blog, but mostly we drew strength from all that they have overcome to then be able to do a “happy dance”…I know she was strong and didn’t stop fighting until the very end so I hope she is now doing her own “happy dance.”
The best example of Burrito’s “dance” where he stands bipedally, clutching his thighs with his hands and moving from foot to foot is in the Emmy award winning video put together by KOMO 4 of the chimpanzees’ first moments on Young’s Hill. You can see the video here – Burrito’s dance is at 3:30.
And here are a few photos of Mr. B.
Thank you, Lisa, for being such a good friend to the chimpanzees, for sharing this day with them, and for sharing your touching memories of your time with Linda during her illness.
Negra loves to watch us dance. Usually we initiate the dancing, but yesterday, as Diana was walking past the front rooms, Negra clearly indicated that she would like to be entertained. So we obliged! As we started dancing, Negra came down from her bed and danced along with us in her own special way.
Jamie sometimes disapproves of us having too much fun with the other chimps, as you can tell from her scowl in this video. Thankfully, she chose not to spit on us this time.
