Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Foxie

Feels like Sanctuary

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Today really felt like sanctuary, I mean everyday does, of course! But everyday is different, each chimps mood varies, what they feel like doing, or not doing. Today was full of patrol walks, laughter, exploring, displaying, excited breathy pants, and of course a few non shifters ;). The beauty of sanctuary is choice and with that choice gives them a sort of freedom, not the freedom they should have and very much deserve, but the closest freedom they can have. Some days I will catch moments that just make your heart want to burst with joy, like Jamie chasing Foxie on Young’s Hill. Because those moments are what sanctuary is all about!

We just updated our wish list for Wildlife Toybox. They have some really fun durable enrichment, we especially need the mirror cover for our “Looky Lou”!

Rayne says goodnight!

Blankets and Nests Type of Day

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As part of today’s daytime enrichment we pre-made nests for the three groups of chimpanzees. They are clearly capable of making their own nests with the special modifications to meet each of their personal needs, therefore our pre-made nests might not be up to their standards. We won’t get offended if some rearranging and redecorating occurs, if anything it makes for good enrichment. For example, Jamie likes to incorporate boots and books to hers so tomorrow morning we might see some boot or book additions in them. In the wild their night nests are complex and are made by arranging tree branches and lining them with leaves, while their daytime nests are usually closer to the ground and less time consuming. Just in case, we made some in all areas of the enclosures to allow the chimps to pick and choose where they want to rest, after alterations are made. We mostly used blankets and different fabrics to design them today but other days we provide the chimps different materials to make their evening or daytime resting nests like paper, plant material, clothing, silk scarves, etc.

Last week was busy with introductions so as caregivers were making nests in the different enclosures, some had the same thought I had: let’s just lay down here for a bit.

Caregivers Kelsi and Sam testing out some nests in the front rooms.

What do you guys think about this pre-made nest?

This morning I saw Negra nesting while enjoying squash browse that Dr. Erin brought yesterday.

Jamie on one of the pre-made nests caregivers prepared today in the green house.

Annie nesting in the greenhouse. Note how she is holding her hand and foot.

Missy and Jody on the greenhouse platform, Jody arranging blankets for her nest.

Enjoy some extras:

Burrito sitting peacefully on the platform of the greenhouse. Don’t be fooled, this guy does not let us skip our daily cardio.

Foxie in the greenhouse looking straight at the camera.

Honey B chilling in the playroom.

Missy looking towards the hill on this chilly and cloudy day.

Dora about to eat the raisin she successfully retrieved from the raisin board using a chopstick.

Rayne carrying around a chopstick after going through most of the raisin board enrichment.

PS. Check out our Amazon wish-list for a list of books for this years Jamieween celebration!

Isn’t Sanctuary Life Grape?

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A million thanks to all Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest supporters that participated yesterday in our HOOT! For The Holidays virtual celebration to welcome the Lucky Six. We are all so grateful for the generous donations and bids because we surpassed our goal by plenty and more, assuring future plans to develop. Sanctuary life for these amazing 16 chimpanzees could not be possible without all of you amazing souls. We hope that learning more about the Lucky Six and their past brought everyone a bit closer to them.

To continue the celebration we harvested some grapes directly from our small vineyard and gave some to the chimps as an afternoon snack. Everyone was very excited about fresh grapes!

I walked to the green house and noticed this chimp lineup. Caregiver Katelyn had many sets of eyes looking at her while she harvested grapes from the vineyard.

Caregiver Katelyn serving Missy some grapes fresh from the vine.

Negra all cozy this morning in the green house. Thanks to everyone that has donated blankets, they certainly appreciate it!

Foxie coming in from Young’s Hill after enjoying a beautiful sunny day.

Gordo resting high up on the green house platform after a scrumptious lunch.

Mave looking into the camera while enjoying the breeze in the outdoor chute.

Rayne looking down from a platform in the green house with a wooden toy in her mouth.

Forty Five and Fierce

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Today we celebrated Foxie’s 45th Birthday! Happy Birthday Foxie!!!

First, we set up all of her new dolls in the Greenhouse. She spent a lot of time looking at them all and picking out which ones she wanted to interact with first. I loved watching her pick up and look at each one. She would hold on to some of them and others she sat down, but came back to later in the day. After the doll party Foxie’s group enjoyed a watermelon bowl forage on Young’s Hill. The watermelon bowls were filled with lettuce, peaches, kiwi, and some cherries. Everyone was super excited and foraged on the hill trying to find as many as they could. Foxie was on the Hill longer than everyone else and seem to really enjoy eating her watermelon in the cooler weather. The Lucky Six as well as Mave, Honey B, and Willy B enjoyed the same treats, just not in a bowl form. Each time I saw Foxie the rest of the day she was carrying around a different doll.

I would say overall Foxie had a pretty good day. Lots of new dolls, watermelon bowls, and she even got to yell at her neighbors for a little bit.

The watermelon bowls!

Jody headed back into the Greenhouse.

Foxie with her first watermelon bowl and new dolls.

Foxie scooped all of the insides out!

Foxie found a second watermelon bowl!

Missy enjoying her findings.

Negra with her watermelon.

Annie resting while eating her watermelon.

Can’t forget about Burrito! He is still doing well and was pretty excited for some watermelon.

New Chimps New Routine

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New chimps also means a new routine. We are definitely trying to work out some kinks. Shifting can be hard when chimps don’t want to leave a room. Sometimes it means the humans clean until later in the day or if the chimps decide not to leave we can’t clean. Eventually, Dora’s group and Mave’s group will get into a new routine of shifting, but that probably won’t be this week ;). Today was no different, but we did get to clean Playroom 3, which feels like a win. So you might hear us say it was a busy day or today was crazy. What it really means is us humans are a little tired, but we got most of their areas clean. Also, have we mentioned how great our sixteen chimps are! I still can’t believe there are sixteen chimpanzees that get to call this place home! I couldn’t get photos of everyone today, but I was fortunate to get a few and have some kind caregivers share some of their photos with me.

Annie this morning looking over at the neighbors. I mean you have to keep an eye on the new guys, right?

This photo I captured last week and just wanted to share because it’s Burrito! How lucky are we to have this guy in our lives.

Little Miss Foxie exploring through the tall grass.

The ever so mischievous Honey B!

Jody also had to go spy on the neighbors this morning.

While cleaning Playroom 3 we found a grooming train! The Green House has so much vertical space, it really is amazing. In this photo you can see Gordo grooming Lucky and Lucky grooming Terry. Dora has a nice little nest on the other platform and if you look below, Rayne foraging for cherry tomatoes.

Look at this Mave!

After Rayne was done foraging in the Green House, she came up to say hi.

I can not get over how handsome Willy B is. No wonder Dora gets excited to see him.

Shut Up and Blog

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Today was pretty busy day for the humans, but the chimps made sure to fit in some fun. Of course, Burrito played with everyone! Jamie had a lovely day napping in a extravagant nest full of book pages and boots. I loved watching her sort through her big bag of enrichment too.  Honey B and Mave had a blast unrolling around in the raffle tickets! Cy flipped through magazines. I wasn’t able to capture much from Lucky’s group, but they were busy inspecting one of the security camera JB just set-up.

Today’s blog was going to be my favorite type of blog, a smorgasbord of photos! But, throughout the day I was able to get some fun video clips of some of the chimps. So why not do it all! It made me start thinking. What are all of our blog followers’ favorite kinds of blogs? Do you like blogs that are interactive like games or educational? Do you like blogs with lots of content or are you like, enough already I want to see the photos. Maybe you’re more into the videos where you can see the chimps and get more familiar with the building. Personally, I love photos with descriptions! Whatever you are into, I will stop talking so you can enjoy these photos!

Annie and Jody:

Honey B with her raffle tickets:

Jamie looking through her giant enrichment bag:

And a series of photos of Jamie nesting:

Mave unrolling her raffle tickets:

Queen Negra and Missy:

  

 

Photo Dump

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Finding a theme for each day’s blog tends to really get to us after all the cleaning is done so by 1pm our minds are mostly just scattering to find good content. I don’t know if it’s the increasing heat that is expected to hit triple digits again during the next couple of days, but my brain did not cooperate to give me a magnificent story line for today. Because of this, I took the liberty of introducing photo dumps to the blog. These have been increasing in popularity on different social media forums, where people gather sometimes random or not so random photos, and cluster them into one single post with a caption as simple as “Photo dump” and maybe some random emoji to match the theme…if there is any. Usually, there is no specific sequence of events for these and they end up being a series of good photos that are otherwise using up space in the phone or camera memory and that should not go to waste. From selfies to scenic photos, they can include just about anything. I would love to spam all of you the million selfies I have unashamedly taken over the past months that have yet to see the light of day, but I’m hoping some chimp and bovine photos would suffice.

Jamie’s table for one

Negra’s morning nest

Rayne LOVED the movie tickets enrichment that they got today in the Mezzanine. I later saw her tangled in the tickets while unraveling more, sadly I was not able to capture the moment. But just imagine her laying down covered in movie tickets like a bride-to-be in her bachelorette party with a dress made of toilet paper, or a TP mummy, whatever is easier for you. It was just great.

I later saw Rayne nesting with the remains of the ticket stubs she was tangled in

Sweet sweet Dora during her afternoon resting time

Foxie with her doll looking inside the Green House to see if any friends would come out as well

A Gordito side eye <3

Honey, as beautiful as always

And then we have here a handsome Nutmeg