Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
This morning Foxie was sitting in Front Room 4, also known as the “Portrait Room”. Foxie had seen me with the camera and looked intrigued, so I asked Foxie (and boss Jamie of course) if I could take her photo. They must have both approved and I must say Foxie is a very photogenic chimp.
Bonus: Jody enjoying some morning peanuts!
Bonus Bonus: Jody taking her chow on Young’s Hill this morning!
This morning everyone wanted to eat chow outside! It was a perfectly brisk morning with warm sunshine, no complaints there.
Jody in her usual spot on Young’s Hill:
Jody was breathy panting with excitement for Missy to come join her:
Jody, Missy, and Foxie heading out:
Foxie:
Annie took her chow out to a log and enjoyed some solitude:
Burrito joining the ladies:
After the Green House was cleaned we put in some new foliage called Lemmon’s willow. The chimps had never tried this before and we were interested to see who would like it. We assumed Jody would, but we actually found almost all the chimps wadging on it at one point in the day, particularly Jody, Annie, Burrito, and Missy!
Jody munching on a Lemmon’s willow branch:
Missy snagging a branch:
Missy took a branch bigger than her inside to snack on:
**BONUS**
Today’s daytime enrichment was firehose knots with nuts and seeds inside. As I was walking around and snapping some photos I found Jamie enjoying what looked like 3 or 4 knots and a troll sock tied around her ankle. She had tied it herself and had been casually strutting around with it. However, once she saw that I noticed the anklet she took it off discreetly (it was very hard to get a picture of this).
Jamie with her troll anklet:
This weekend we host our last two summer visits for our supporters for the year. These small visits feature an educational talk from one of our staff members and a chance to view the chimpanzees as they forage for their lunch on Young’s Hill. Today’s lunch forage featured highly prized whole sweet corn (husk and all!).
Burrito spent most of his time picking up primate chow, but managed to get some corn too:
Foxie enjoyed some corn and a good view from one of the towers:
Jamie:
Negra:
Missy:
Jody made several trips outdoors to get her lunch:
There’s no better time to eat corn on the cob than in September -or at least Annie thinks so. She “won” the forage today by collecting the most corn and scaling the Escher structure for that final piece!
In case you haven’t heard, yesterday’s Giving Day for Apes was nothing short of a success! Check out the above video for a thank you from the Queen herself.
In other news, today after lunch, wadging paper primate chow bags seemed like top priority for Annie, Jody and Foxie. Jody and Annie had to take theirs to go so they could go spy on a big yellow construction vehicle that was backing up to the chimp house. Every day we get to see so much progress on our new building. It’s truly an exhilarating experience to be a part of!
Here’s Foxie and her wadge:
Jody:
And Annie:
My favorite photo is this profile of her. You can really see just how full her bottom lip is!
Sometimes when I hangout with Jamie there is a moment when it hits me how overwhelmingly cool she is.
Today, this was that moment:
Bonus Foxie with her strawberry shortcake doll:
Of course there are many points in the day when I come to this realization about Jamie or any of the other chimps. For example Jamie was having a great day today and at a certain point after lunch she was ready for her current favorite boot. As I quietly (so as to not disturb Jamie) played spin-kiss the doll-pass it back to Foxie, Jamie gathered her blankets and boots while quietly breathy panting in contentment and excitement for what was going to be a great nap. Unfortunately, we can’t always capture those moments in a photo!
One of the first things new chimp house volunteers start learning is how to identify each of the chimpanzees. When you’re meeting a group of chimps for the first time (or the first ten times), they can often look frustratingly similar to one another. Eventually, of course, they start to look like individuals and you wonder how you could ever have mixed them up. But there’s a definite learning curve.
It helps to be able to spend some time just staring at each chimpanzee, so I just made these videos for our volunteers, in which you can see each of the seven chimpanzees from every angle, just being themselves. I thought some of our blog followers might appreciate them also. And if you’re not interested in working on your chimp ID, the videos make seven good excuses just to look at each of these beautiful chimps for several minutes.
(For extra credit, click on each name below to learn some identifying physical characteristics for each individual).
Jody:
Being the only male can be hard…
But who could resist this handsome fellow!
Here are a few extra photos…
Missy eating apples on the Hill this morning:
Missy foraging for corn at lunch:
Jody’s loot today:
Negra was really excited about corn:
Annie did pretty well during the lunch forage:
Foxie:
And then there is Jamie (she has been enjoying her new firehose swing):
