Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Enrichment

Video of Burrito thanks to Diana P.

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Diana P.  just became a Holiday Pal to all seven chimpanzees by taking advantage of our Candy Cane Weekend deal and donating $1500 towards our Holiday Pal fundraising! Thanks to her donation and the donations from the awesome supporters yesterday, we are freeing the blog and the Burrito video is posted below.

Don’t forget that you have until tomorrow (Monday) night at midnight to take advantage of becoming  an Alpha Pal to all seven chimpanzees at the discounted $1500 donation (normally $1680), or getting a bonus 2014 calendar for choosing the Best Friends Pal level of sponsorship. Donate now!

Without further ado, here is the always charming, Burrito Chimpanzee.

You may know from past blog posts that Burrito really enjoys popper toys, like these:

burrito with popper toy

The other day we put out a new donated toy that has “bed bugs” that pop up when you push down on others. Burrito carried it around with him all morning, occasionally stopping to push and pull on the bed bugs.

See video below, and thanks again to all who participated in the Holiday Pal fundraising ransom donations!

Green Toys!

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And our thankfulness continues! If you saw the blog yesterday, you’ll know that the chimpanzees received many wonderful new gifts from some of our amazing supporters! Well, today the chimpanzees also received new toys from Green Toys! In addition to the ongoing challenge we (and Enrichment Coordinator, Debbie) have of finding things that are new and interesting for the chimpanzees’ active minds (particularly Jamie’s!), as you can imagine, the life as an item of chimpanzee enrichment is not an easy one. So after receiving a variety of Green Toys from our amazing supporters via our Wishlist, we were pretty excited to learn that they are chimp-tested and caregiver-approved! Green Toys are not only environmentally friendly but can take a licking from the chimps and remain relatively unscathed.

Here is Jamie checking out a new dump truck:

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Jamie giving the “bite test” to a submarine as Foxie (who is still loving her new French Dora doll from yesterday!) comes to check things out:

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And Jamie checking out a new airplane (and I am pretty sure thinking she could fly one):

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Missy enjoying some orange “tea” in the tea set:

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Missy:

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Foxie:

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Thank you so much Green Toys for the chimpanzees’ gifts! And also for making great toys which just happen to be great chimpanzee enrichment!

First snow

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It’s been a pretty mild fall / beginning of winter, and we finally got our first snowfall at the sanctuary overnight. It was just a dusting, but Missy was VERY eager to get outside for a taste.

Missy's hand reach for snow

Missy eating snow

Jamie also went out quickly to get a snack.

Jamie's hands reaching for snow

Jamie with handfuls of snow

We were wondering if the colder weather might slow down Jamie’s desire to walk around the hill. The answer is no. So far four walks and counting. She did wait until the snow melted, though. Missy joined Jamie on one of her walks. She gave us a big head start then ran full-speed up the hill. You can see a photo on her Facebook page.

 

Speaking of Facebook, a few weeks ago we asked on our Facebook page how fans became interested in chimpanzees. The answers were really interesting. One person recalled the video of the chimpanzees at CSNW first experiencing a big snowstorm, which was shared on a couple of news stations.

The video, which is now almost five years old, is posted below. That was before we put the panels on the greenhouse, so really before they had a greenhouse, and long before they had the 2-acre Young’s Hill. The chimps are leaning out of front room #4 into what we called the outdoor area then. Listen to those happy food squeaks and watch the prehensile lips in action!

 

 

Hanging Around

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It seems that Foxie is upside down as often as she’s right side up. She loves to climb to the ceiling of the Greenhouse and hang by her feet, and she often swings on the fire hoses as through they’re trapezes. Today, she has carried around this plastic frying pan in her mouth for much of the day, and didn’t even put it down for her acrobatics.

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The Great Piñata Heist

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The chimpanzees had some special guests today! Friend of the chimpanzees (and the humans!) Adrienne Armstrong, along and her family and friends, Ollie, Jessy, and Jamie, paid a visit to the sanctuary to volunteer in the chimp house. And they brought the chimpanzees piñatas! And you’ll never guess who made a haul of all the loot…Annie!

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As you may recall from a previous post, as the least dominant of the chimpanzees, this is quite a bold move for Annie and an undertaking not without some risk involved. As the boss of the sanctuary, Jamie typically makes a quick claim to enrichment like piñatas, leaving the other chimps to wait for an opportunity to see if anything was missed when she casts them aside. But today Jamie was distracted by a new pair of boots being “chimp approved” in the kitchen so Annie decided to make her move.

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Jamie was briefly torn between seeing Annie with the piñatas, and staff with the new boots, but after screaming at Annie once and throwing a blanket at her from the loft, the prospective new boots won Jamie’s attention. And Annie seized not only her opportunity, but all, yes ALL, of the piñatas!

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Annie wasn’t even swayed by her best (and more dominant) friend, Missy, who continually approached her while peering at her and moderately suggesting she hand the loot over. Annie just calmly picked up the piñatas and moved her spoils elsewhere. Gotta love this girl.

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Thank you so much, Adrienne, Ollie, Jessy and Jamie, for all that you do for the chimpanzees and for making their day (especially Annie’s!!) special!

Annie’s 39th birthday

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Wow. I can’t believe Annie is 39 today! It’s an honorary birthday, because we don’t know exactly when Annie was born. She was captured from Africa and used in biomedical testing for over three decades before coming to CSNW.

Today, we celebrated her freedom from the lab by throwing two parties—first in the greenhouse, we set up a small forage of peanuts and primate chow along with perfect party decor including a cupcake piñata. Then at lunch, volunteers Denice and Joel and myself set up a pretty cool forage on the hill… we dug holes in the ground and “planted” whole veggies—carrots with the greens, whole cabbage plants, beets, and some green onions (Annie’s favorite)!

I never tire of seeing all the chimps out on Young’s Hill, knowing that now they have the chance to have grass under their feet and sun on their backs. It’s something that Annie hadn’t experienced since her infancy before coming to the sanctuary. And today they not only got to forage for their food like chimps do in the wild, but they also got to “harvest” their own plants to enjoy!

Party #1 – in the greenhouse

Annie’s cupcake piñata:

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Jamie grabbed it first:

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But quickly moved on, leaving it for Annie!

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Burrito found a sock with a box of nuts in it:

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Party #2 – garden forage on Young’s Hill

Volunteers Denice and Joel helped with the planting:

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Jody really loved the garden forage. She cleaned up! Here she’s carrying her bounty with her:

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And enjoying cabbage in the greenhouse:

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Foxie found some chow pieces to munch on:

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Missy collected a bunch of food:

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She enjoyed some on the shaky bridge, but then took the rest into the greenhouse with her. Negra didn’t come out for the forage (she was much more comfortable in her nest!) but Missy, being such a good friend, brought some carrots and green onions for Negra to enjoy. Negra also picked up some cabbage scraps, so she got basically the same food at the harvesters outside. Why should the Queen have to go work in the garden anyway, when others will just bring her the goods? 🙂

And Annie grabbed all the beets:

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Which gave her “beet lipstick”

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Help keep the birthday celebrations going on all week! FLOAT (For Love of All Things) has created a unique clothing design, and for this week only, for every sale they make they will donate $8 to Annie and everyone else at CSNW. Please share the site on Facebook and forward to your friends! The proceeds for CSNW only last until the end of the day on Sunday, September 15th. So hurry and get your shopping in now!