Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Jamie

Three More Sleeps

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This month has flown by! Can you believe there are only three days left until the chimps celebrate Christmas? The caregiver elves are working really hard to get everything ready for the highly anticipated day! Today Anna and Chad built Jamie and Honey B’s workbenches! Lucky’s group has not yet experienced a CSNW Christmas and we look forward to them opening the amazing presents everyone has donated! Every year we express our gratitude to you all for your generous donations and kind words and this year is no different! As the presents roll in, I am always in awe of how much support you all give to us! So thank you!

And as a thank you I thought I would share a little photo shoot with the ever so kind and beautiful Lucky!

And because it is the season of giving we have a few bonus photos ;).

Jamie savoring her icicle!

Gordo playing with one of his favorite enrichment items (a box!) and eating one of his favorite foods!

Icicle season

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Negra, with Jamie behind her, was the first one by the door today when I gave her group access to Young’s Hill. She spent a good amount of time enjoying handfuls of snow!

Jamie, Annie, and Foxie getting their turn for some snow.

After we cleaned the seven’s playroom we filled up one of their tubs with snow and put some icicles in it. We had to to tell volunteer Lisa to save some for the chimps, since she wanted to eat it all.

After the chimpanzees got access back to the playroom Jamie was the first one to the tub of goodies.

The chimps on the other side of the building also got to enjoy some icicles and snow.

Gordo was first to investigate.

He picked up some icicles, but then went straight for the snow.

Rayne also came over to grab some icicles.

Snow was slowly melting and sliding down the roof of the Greenhouse and Cy was keeping an eye on it.

In the other Greenhouse Honey B was ready for a game of chase.

Bonus photos from after breakfast this morning.

Negra with her oranges.

Burrito with a mouth full of chow.

We have lots of fun things on our Amazon wish list for the Holidays! If you are interested you can check it out here!

CSI: Chimp House

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One of the many reasons why chimpanzees should never be pets is their natural destructive behavior. On the daily basis we enter enclosures for cleaning and find destroyed toys, ripped blankets, broken night time enrichment, and on many occasions stuffed animals with severed limbs and stuffing coming out. This is why we follow rigorous rules that dictate the type enrichment and toys that each group is allowed to have. Ranging from choking hazards, to possible obstructions if ingested each item is checked by at least two caregivers before the item is placed inside an enclosure to ensure that the chimpanzees, as individuals and as groups will be safe. Every item that is placed inside is potentially going to be destroyed, and sometimes we encounter crime scenes that may never be solved. I mean we could, we can just watch security footage, but working around mysteries is more intriguing.

Case #1

First on the scene: Special Agent de Bree

Victim: Stuffed teddy bear

Cause of death: Severe stuffingloss by limb amputation and decapitation. Strangulation has not been ruled out.

Location: Greenhouse 1

Evidence collected: Plaid ribbon scarf

Case #2

First on the scene: Special Agent Castro-Loza

Victim: Stuffed tiger

Cause of death: Severe stuffingloss by amputation of left hind leg and tail.

Location: Front Room 3

Evidence collected: Unopened pumpkin seed

Number of suspects: 7

But three individuals matched our previous offense data base. Jamie, Annie, and Burrito are on the top of the suspect list pending investigation and forensic analysis.

Jamie de-stuffing a lion

Click here to access our Amazon Wish List with an assortment of approved enrichment. The Holiday list is up!!!

Click here to view our Enrichment Database.

She’ll Let You Know

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This video is a perfect example of how Jamie gestures to let you know what she wants. If you couldn’t tell Jamie was a bit busy managing the humans today, as per usual. I love Jamie because she isn’t afraid to let you know what she wants. She obviously has no problem telling us what boots she wants us to wear, what books to give her, which piece of pepper she wants, or get the gator now! Most of Jamie’s communication is through gestures like pointing or slight head nods. In the video you can see I had picked out a boot in hopes that it was the one she had in mind. Sometimes we get lucky on the first try, other times you have to keep trying them on. She usually has a favorite pair that we try first! If she doesn’t like the boot, book, or whatever it is Jamie wants she will keep pointing until we get the right one. Occasionally she likes the boot, but wants a different person to put it on! It’s the best feeling when you have been trying to figure out what Jamie wants and then all of the sudden you get the combo! It’s a total rush because all we want to do is please her! Finding out what Jamie wants is just a small way to make her life better and we are happy to do it.

It’s December 1st which means we will start slowly adding Christmas items to the wish list, so keep your eyes peeled!

Foxie with Dora the Explorer:

We Made it!

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Hooray, we made it to the weekend! I for one am exhausted this week, between the chimp’s Thanksgiving and the human’s we are all wiped. I was asked a lot this week what I am grateful for. So I thought I would share a few things that I am especially grateful for.

1. I am grateful for our expansion to be able to take in more chimps. It has been an extraordinary experience to get to know these six incredible chimpanzees!

2. I am thankful for the chimp’s health. This pandemic has been overwhelming and very stressful. The lengths that we go to protect these chimps are obviously working and we are so fortunate to have such a dedicated group of people to help protect them.

3. I am forever and always grateful to be able to care for these sixteen remarkable chimpanzees. To help provide a safe and enriching life for them is a true honor.

4. This year I was extremely thankful to be surrounded by the people that I loved. So many of us were not able to do that last year, which makes this year even more special!

Enough mushy stuff, let’s look at some photos! I was able to capture some photos over the last week. Not all the photos make it to the blog, fit the theme, or sometimes we capture a moment throughout the week!

I think this photo perfectly captures Jamie. She is beautiful, extremely intelligent, funny, always thinking, and has moments of letting her guard down.

This photo of Burrito was taken last Friday when it had just snowed. So, of course Burrito’s mouth is full of snow!

Negra sleeping peacefully in her nest.

Sleepy Rayne napping in the front rooms.

Willy B laying down watching his soaps having a nice afternoon!

Cy, I mean look at this guy!

Cy and I were playing chase the other day, we had to take a break and play with the foot box a little!

Gordo stopped to check himself out through the camera.

Her firehose is only fit for a queen. Let us all hail Queen Lucky!

A variety of play

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Enjoy this video of a variety of short play clips from around the sanctuary over the past couple weeks. Also, here are some photos from the chimp house today!

Dora enjoying the Greenhouse.

Willy B relaxing after breakfast.

Mave and Honey B in the afternoon.

Jamie watching Lisa and Burrito play chase.

Wait… Burrito Didn’t Laugh?! + Chimpanzees Who Need Your Voice

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Recently, I came across an old video that I narrated that mentioned how rare it was to hear Burrito laughing, and I was surprised.

Wait… Burrito didn’t laugh?!

I searched the blog and found more references to this phenomenon, like this one from as late as 2010, two years after he arrived at the sanctuary with his six groupmates.

Burrito’s laughter reverberates his side of the building frequently now. It’s really hard to believe that wasn’t always the case.

I even quizzed J.B. and he didn’t remember a time when Burrito didn’t laugh.

I talked to former staff member and current volunteer Elizabeth, who took the above video today during a volunteer shift, and she also couldn’t remember a silently-playful Burrito. We did both vaguely remember speculating that Burrito would put his hand or objects in his mouth to muffle the sound of his laughter.

We’re glad Burrito found his (laughing) voice.

Here’s a bonus photo from today of Gordo, Rayne, and Dora. It made me laugh.

All sixteen of the chimpanzees now at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest began their lives or spent decades in biomedical research.

If you are subscribed to our e-newsletter, you should have received an email yesterday (https://chimpsnw.salsalabs.org/novemberupdates) with some sad news for chimpanzees who are just as deserving of a sanctuary life away from laboratories.

While there was promising progress for a number of years getting chimpanzees out of research laboratories and into sanctuaries, there have been some very disturbing decisions by the NIH in the last few years that have left over 90 chimpanzees still in labs.

As the newsletter suggested, one action you can take right now is to reach out to your representatives. Animal Protection of New Mexico makes this easy. Senator Kennedy in Louisiana is speaking out publicly about these decisions and more members of congress should join him.

We’ll be sharing more information about this in the coming weeks.