Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
It felt fitting to have today’s blog be about enrichment! There are so many different ways to enrich the chimps lives! The video highlights a few of the many ways to add to the chimps day to day life. Thank you to Comfort & Joy auction winner Emily H. for the giant stuffed dolphin for Jamie’s group! We put it out on on Jamie’s side this morning!
It is so fun to watch a chimp like Honey B, who has always preferred human interactions, to seek her chimp friends out instead. Watching Honey B and Dora both flourish socially in their group has been one of the most rewarding parts of my job, as well as witnessing Mave find her soulmate, Dora. Please enjoy this video of Honey B, Dora, and of course, Mave!
Chimpmas is right around the corner! We have started to add enrichment and items that we need around the chimp house on our wish-list!
Mora:
The beautiful Rayne:
‘Twas the night before Thanksgiving, when all through the [chimp] house
Not a chimp was stirring, not even a Honey (B);
The chimps were in bed, tucked into nests
in hopes that sweet rolls would soon be at Chimp Sanctuary Northwest.
Today has been rather low-key, whether the chimps realize it or not, they are resting up for the big Thanksgiving celebration. I personally can’t wait to hear Negra food squeak for Hawaiian rolls – it’s something I wait all year for! I thought I would share a collection of photos taken from today.
Negra staring out the window this morning:
Terry playing chase with one of his caregivers:
Missy eating tomatoes at lunch:
Cy <3:
Burrito spying on the neighbors:
Jamie laying on a barrel:
Jamie off-duty:
Honey B during a lunch forage:
Gordo, isn’t he so handsome?:
Sweet little Dora:
Continuing the series of lessons the chimps have taught us, today we have Dora to thank for teaching us to take some time for ourselves even when our days are busy, don’t skip the self care. Whether it be a vacation, yoga class or building a fine nest for a nap on a chilly day, make sure you take some time for yourself.
We also would like to thank all our supporters for the magazine donations made throughout the year! The response to our request for magazines has been amazing but Cy has a lot of gossip, travel and food magazines to get through right now, so we would like to put our magazine donation request on hold until he has time to catch up. We will be sure to let you all know when he has caught up on all his reading material and is ready to receive more.
Picking and choosing which photos we include in the blog can be a daunting task. I can’t speak for my fellow caregivers, but there’s always some kind of embellishment that makes the photo unusable in my eyes. Whether it be bad lighting, a piece of poop center stage in the photo, a wound, caging getting in the way, a slow shutter speed which makes the photo blurry, etc. There is just always that one tiny thing that makes me call the photo bad, delete it, and move on.
Today is no exception. Between cleaning the enclosures to training new staff members, it has been a busy day here. When I finally got some time to go around and take some photos, I will admit I rushed it a bit. Mostly because though cleaning is over, training still continues into the afternoon as well as other Chimp House chores. I knew right off the bat that most of the photos I took were unusable (in my eyes at least) but I had some confidence there was at least a few decent ones in there some where.
Wrong! The vast majority I wasn’t a fan of. In fact, there wasn’t a single one I’m particularly attached to. There were, however, several that had potential to be great if it wasn’t for one thing or another I saw wrong in them. You might be wondering, “Why don’t you just Photoshop them?” Though Photoshop or any photo editing software is a great tool, we don’t use it in order to maintain our transparency to you all. Other than some basic color correcting, we don’t edit something out or in. Back in a former life as a photojournalist, our rule was simple as it relates to photo editing software. If you can’t do it in a dark room, then you shouldn’t do it in the software. We more or less follow that same basic rule.
That being said, here are some photos from today that had the potential of being great. Enjoy photos that would have been deleted on any other day.
Mave in mid-chew
Honey B during a lunch forage
Gordo during the forage
Gordo again foraging
Gordo again!
Also, I did spend some time trying correct that last one but it didn’t turn out like I had hoped for
Willy B and Honey B during the forage
Honey B munching on some green onions
Burrito during breakfast with his apples
Dora and Lucky head-to-head
Cy perusing through a magazine after lunch
Rayne watching me yesterday as I was cleaning the mezzanine
Terry’s foot hanging off the platform in the one of his greenhouses after lunch
Speaking of Terry, have you seen the Teeny Tiny Terry book in the Comfort & Joy auction? It truly is amazing and one of a kind! The auction is up and running through November 18th! Be sure to register and bid high and bid often!Good luck to everyone!
Like Kelsi wrote in yesterday’s blog, there is no such thing as a dull moment here at CSNW. Sometimes I think the phrase “keeps you on your toes” was coined by / for chimpanzee caregivers.
This morning, we got to work and it was a brisk 34 degrees. Kelsi and I hopped in the side-by-side to do our perimeter check so we could let the chimps into their respective outdoor enclosures. The two sides of the chimp house operate simultaneously, so we have two shifters during morning cleaning. The lead caregiver for the day shifts doors in the original building and the second shifter shifts the new building, so we buddy system the perimeter check.
When I opened the door to Young’s Hill, I didn’t expect anyone to go rushing outside since it was so chilly. I was proved wrong, though, when Jamie went right out and around we went for an early morning patrol.
By the time we got around the top, we had been joined by Missy and Burrito. The early morning walk with Jamie turned into some cardio when Burrito took over and we raced down the hill. Because who doesn’t love cardio in the morning, am I right?
As you all know, one of the best holidays of the year is coming up in a few short days. The countdown to Jamie-ween is officially in single digits! I grew up in a family that loves Halloween and I always look forward to pumpkin carving, dressing up, and lots (and lots) of candy. And, because I’m a mature adult, I’ve been really wanting to purchase one of those big blow up T-Rex costumes that are pretty popular online for a while. Amazon Prime day got the best of me this year and, you guessed it, a few days later a giant inflatable T-Rex showed up at my door.
Best day ever? Maybe.
And over time, we’ve learned that some of the chimps think that masks are pretty funny. Gordo especially loves a troll mask we have that was donated a while back! So I wanted to bring the costume to work and share it with my friends.
With a little help from my human coworkers I was able to show it to both groups of chimps! First I went back to Cy’s group and made sure all the chimps were around while I put it on, so that they knew it was me inside it. Gordo and Dora both seemed really interested in it! The people in Jamie’s group were more unsure, so I didn’t spend much time on that side of the chimp house. Jamie, Negra, & Burrito saw it acted like it was just another Wednesday. Annie, Foxie, and Missy weren’t into it- which is totally okay! The fun part about random enrichment things like this is that it’s okay if some people don’t want to engage. Some people though, like Gordo, enjoyed the short T. Rex intermission. 🙂
If you’re looking forward to Jamie-ween like we are, be sure to get your tickets to an exclusive Behind-The-Scenes of Jamie-ween virtual sanctuary visit on 10/31/23 at 12:00pm PT. If you want to attend, but have to work or have other responsibilities, still consider registering, because we’ll send out a link to the recording to everyone who registered so you can watch it at your leisure. 🙂
We’re super excited to share some of Jamie-ween with all of you, since it’s such a special holiday to all of us here. It’s also the perfect kick-off to our Comfort & Joy auction, which will be going live on the 31st and will run until November 18th. To celebrate all things Comfort & Joy, we are also offering a Comfort & Joy Virtual Gathering event on November 12th! This will be a great opportunity to learn more about the sanctuary, connect with us via chat, and just enjoy an evening full of comfort, chimps, & joy. What could be better? 🙂
See y’all soon!
P.S. Thanks so much to everyone who submitted a review in Great Nonprofits for us yesterday evening! We won a spot on the 2023 Top-Rated Non-Profit list, which is awesome. 🙂 Thank you!
It always takes me by surprise when there is a dramatic shift in the weather. Just a couple days ago we were sitting comfortably in 70º weather. Even just yesterday we were still in 60º weather. But the forecast today is a high of 45º and the rest of the week’s forecast is a little dimmer with the highs not expected to surpass 37º and the low expected to be around 15º by Friday night with some snow sprinkled here and there. This dramatic shift in weather doesn’t just surprise me, it surprises every one. I type this as J.B. is now running around winterizing the Chimp House to ensure the chimpanzees are warm and cozy.
Gordo watching J.B. putting up the winter panels to the Riverview Greenhouse
With the chimpanzees retreating to the warmest spots indoors, it was almost impossible to get any photos that weren’t worse quality than that one of Gordo. Or, on the flip side of things, trying to take a decent photo of a chimpanzee who is constantly in motion is also almost impossible.
Case in point: One Burrito Chimpanzee
The only decent photos I was able to get today are:
Dora and Lucky grooming
And the Marvelous Miss Mave
So to reminisce of warmer times, here are some photos from the past couple of days!
Terry sitting on a barrel and watching while Lucky grooms the back of my hand
Nutmeg and Betsy chowing down on some supplemental hay in addition to their grazing opportunities in the pastures
Ok. This next one to me is just the epitome of Dora and her relationship with others.
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Dora sitting above Mave and Honey B as they groom
Young’s Hill as I was leaving the sanctuary last night
After looking at that last photo again, in hindsight I should have seen the signs this kind of weather was coming up. We can only hope things get slightly better for Jamieween!
Speaking of Jamieween, there are still a couple of items left on our Amazon Wish List with just enough time to make it here for the party. But today is sort of the deadline for them to make it in time.
And lastly, a quick update! As some of you know, we use Tru Earth laundry strips. The people at Tru Earth were kind enough to gives our own fundraising page where 20% of sales will go toward the care of the chimpanzees and cattle. We just wanted to make people aware the link to our fundraising page has changed. Every purchase made at this link will have 20% of the purchase go towards the sanctuary!
