Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary for primates.

Missy

Annie

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I have been watching a change with Annie. As many of you may know, Annie is not one of the highest ranking chimps in the group. However, it seems like she knows how to play her cards. She knows exactly when to steal food, something that could get her in trouble with the other chimps. She has to be brave, play it smart, and wait for the perfect moment. Burrito can sometimes get a little too excited, and carried away. She hasn’t been afraid to call him out lately either! Annie has even been more people oriented recently as well. Maybe even a little flirty with some of our male volunteers! She is normally known to spend a lot of time with her chimp friends like Missy, so this new interest in people is very fun to watch. If you’re lucky enough to be the one getting to hangout with her it just makes your heart happy. She is getting bolder all the time, and I think you can see the confidence on her face.

Missy:

Jody wadging her chow bag:

Jamie found a few good magazines and cuddled up into her nest:

Jamie holding her blanket in her pelvic pocket:

Ready to Go!

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Well these chimps were ready to go this morning! Jody and Foxie sprinted out the raceway onto Young’s Hill this morning. Annie sat and soaked in the crisp winter morning. Missy came rippin’ onto the Hill and had a quick morning hug with Annie and ripped right back inside! Burrito attempted to go out but quickly turned around to wait for everyone to come back inside. And when Jamie came out she was ready to conquer any quest!

Here is Foxie a little pilo out on the Hill:

After a brave attempt to hang with the girls, Burrito patiently waited for them to return to the Green House safely:

Burrito retreated back to the warm front rooms eventually:

Neggie with all her wisdom knew where she wanted to be (on the platform in Front Room 2 with a pile of blankets):

Jamie taking a quick yoga tree stand:

Later, after her Hill adventure she spent her leisurely morning wearing an ankle boot and another boot in her pelvic pocket all while laying on a barrel watching the volunteers clean the Playroom:

Two Small Words

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I’ve been writing these two small words over and over lately: Thank you.

Donors to the sanctuary made our year-end fundraising soar to new and unexpected heights, and we have been quite busy sending out thank you letters and donation receipts.

I love to write those words, and I love thinking about each person as they made their donation. Some donors I know very well, and I can picture them as I write. Others are new and mysterious, and I wonder how they came to know about the chimpanzee sanctuary in Cle Elum.

Sometimes (often) those two words don’t feel nearly big enough to contain all of the gratefulness that I’m feeling. I hope the actual depth of my appreciation is somehow transferred into the ink as I write.

It really is incredible that people support the sanctuary and take the time and effort to back up that support with often hard-earned money. Knowing that we have this shared concern and mission is powerful.

I feel lucky to have a job where I not only get to be around amazing and unique non-humans, but I also have the opportunity to see the generosity and hope that our own species is capable of demonstrating.

So, reflecting on all of this today, I started to think about how the chimpanzees show gratitude. Thankfulness is a pretty complicated emotion that is probably an amalgam of different feelings, and maybe something that carries a bit of cultural individuality.

We don’t claim to be able to be inside the heads of the chimpanzees, even those we know very well, so I can’t say for sure that they experience thankfulness like I do.

That’s the conundrum about perception, though – I only know what I experience. I can guess that other people/beings experience the same or similar feelings as I do based on imagining how I would feel in a given situation and observing their outward behaviors, but it’s really just a guess.

Given my limitations of knowing much of anything about what’s outside of myself, I do think that the chimpanzees show and maybe feel something akin to gratitude.

When we serve food, we bring it through the chimp area first, as illustrated in the popular “pasta cam” that J.B. created on Burrito’s birthday. The excitement that the chimpanzees exhibit and the satisfying groans they make when we provide them with food is, I think, at least tinged with gratefulness.

Among themselves, when one of the chimpanzees reaches out for reassurance (like Negra here):

and then receives the reassurance they are seeking (from Jamie in this case):

I imagine there’s some thankfulness that’s part of what the reassurance-seeker experiences.

There was a more dramatic experience last fall when we had to suture Jody’s eyelid that I couldn’t help but believe that Jody was thankful for the humans, even though we had to do something that she otherwise would not have appreciated.

And then there are just the little everyday moments when the chimpanzees do a little something that makes me wonder if they are feeling grateful, like when old friends visit and walk with Jamie or today when I caught Missy’s gaze as she turned from the window she was looking out, and she proceeded to walk over and let me groom her back through the fencing.

I can’t say for sure if Missy was thankful that I was there to share the moment with her, but I can say definitively that I felt a whole lot of gratitude.

There’s magic here

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Personally, I think resolutions are made to be broken. And I’m more a follower of seasons, than the calendar. That said, I think New Year’s Eve is another wonderful opportunity we’re given to stand still and breathe for a moment, take stock and revel in the celebration and gratitude of what brought us to this point and the hope and inspiration of what’s to come.

Today was an incredibly beautiful day. This single gorgeous kestrel spent the whole day flying around the sanctuary:

There was some epic breakfast excitement involving whole apples (apples are a hot ticket item because boss lady, Jamie, LOVES them so we usually quarter these for easier serving to everyone). But when Jamie caught sight of a bowl of whole apples headed her way she literally stood up and screamed at the top of her lungs. I’m not talking about the usual hooting or food grunting, but screaming! You would never think something so every day, so simple as an apple would elicit such pure joy in someone. It made our hearts want to leap right out of our chests. And hers as well it seemed.

The morning may have started in the low twenties, but the chimps anxiously tumbled out into the brilliant sunshine together without hesitation. I couldn’t help but admire their loyalty to one another because even as those less tolerant of the cold stopped to shudder and seemingly rethink their decision, when the others encouraged them to continue, they did. They stuck together. They’re family.

Burrito, Annie, Missy, Jody, Jamie and Foxie:

Missy (R) encouraging her reluctant best friend, Annie, up the hill in the cold morning:

Annie’s such a loyal friend:

Even Burrito was sticking with the group:

Foxie had just lapped up the frost on the structure:

Missy is also a loyal friend and though she was cold, she stuck with Jamie, doing her best to hold back the horses that usually send her galloping across the hill:

Jody diligently followed her family onto the hill making sure everyone was safe, as she does, but she tends to be a little more sensitive to the cold (case in point, the sneer face) and decided to head back inside:

But Jody’s not happy until she knows her family is safe and sound so it wasn’t long before she came out again and decided to busy herself looking for ice snacks until everyone returned:

Jody could see Jamie coming down the hill, back toward the greenhouse where Jody was headed, and decided it would be good chimp politics to make sure Jamie was okay with her keeping that amazing chunk of ice:

Luckily for Jody, Jamie isn’t big on ice chunks:

Annie heading inside:

Later in the afternoon, Jamie and I were headed out on a walk when she spotted staff caregiver, Kelsi, and volunteer caregiver, Caroline, coming back from taking care of the cattle. And that’s not all she spotted. Kelsi had a new pair of muck boots with cows on them! Jamie was so pilo with excitement it looked like she grew three sizes as she made Kelsi race her around the hill, Missy hot on their heels:

You may be wondering about Negra by now. She spent much of the day in happy baby pose in the sunshine streaming through her window and grooming with the others. But she declined having any photographic evidence of anything she did all the live long day. I don’t blame her.

The chimps enjoyed a New Year’s Eve forage for dinner complete with sparkling cider and were all happily ensconced in their evening enrichment as we left.

And here we stand on New Year’s Eve, in the middle of the solstice season, looking back, looking forward. I’m convinced there’s magic here, in the just so tilting toward our star, in the darkening and the lightening of our days. I see it in Annie who used to sit in the raceway too frightened to venture onto Young’s Hill with Missy, rocking with anxiety until she returned, who now bravely follows her into the cold. Annie, who is often the one outside on her own these days. I see it in Missy who flies across the hill, her legs barely able to keep up with her now free heart. I see it in Jamie who wants to explode with joy over the sight of whole apples just for her and caregivers with new boots to race around the hill to her heart’s content. I see it in Jody who braves her dislike of cold temperatures to make sure she can keep a watchful eye over her family until everyone returns safely to the chimp house. I see it in each of the chimpanzees every single day. And I see it in all of you.

YOU make all these moments possible for them. You have helped provide the home, the time, the care and the love for them to heal and grow more than we ever thought possible. Because of you and your overwhelming support of our Bring Them Home campaign we now stand here looking to the year ahead and the expansion of home and family that your absolutely incredible generosity, compassion and love is making a reality. So yes, I see magic in that.

From our hearts to yours, thank you. You. Are. Amazing!! Thank you for being part of this chimp family. And thank you for being committed to the caring and connecting that extends far beyond the bounds of this small sanctuary home. We are all wishing you a New Year’s Eve and year ahead as magical, hopeful, and inspiring as you make possible for these seven amazing individuals, the four beautiful bovines we’re so happy to have welcomed to their new home with us, and all the humans here who have the privilege and honor to care for them, as well as the future family members we can’t wait to welcome.

Happy New Year, everyone! And apologies for the late post! We had persnickety internet today! 😉

Cozy With Some Light Snow

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Today at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest we were pleasantly surprised by snow. It wasn’t in the forecast and though none of it really stuck, it made for a beautiful morning. While most of the chimp decided to get cozy inside as you will see below. Jamie and I went on a few walks enjoying the snow gently falling as we walking around their beautiful outdoor enclosure, Young’s Hill. These are what Sundays are all about!

Annie relaxed and watching the snow:

Burrito laid back:

Negra taking a snooze & doing some light reading:

Blurry feet wrestling of Annie & Missy:

Burrito & Foxie were grooming so intensely I could barely get a clear photo:

All in all these chimps are well rested for Monday!

All You Can Eat

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Chimpanzees love to forage. There’s something very exciting about knowing that a bunch of delicious food is scattered across a wide open space and that you are welcome to as much of it as you can hold. It’s like a treasure hunt with a tasty reward.

This afternoon we took advantage of the sun and blue skies and set up a lunch forage on Young’s Hill. Burrito kept his eyes on the prize:

Today’s winner, though, might have been Missy, who we saw hobbling along with a mouth and both hands full of the good stuff: