Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Missy

Octobrrrrr!

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While the mornings in October are beautiful, they sure are cold! However, its still warm in the sun and the chimps don’t seem to mind the brisk mornings. Look at all of them out on Young’s Hill (even Neggie)!

Negra was very eager to go outside with everyone this morning:

And then promptly came back inside to snooze a little bit more, can you tell that lump of blankets is Negra:

Missy was having a blast rippin and chasing her friends onto Young’s Hill:

Jody, Jamie, Foxie, and Annie all scattered onto the Hill:

Foxie:

Annie:

Burrito:

Burrito eventually decided to go inside:

Later in the morning while we were cleaning I saw Jody basking in the sun:

While Jody was relaxing I found Burrito watching Foxie and Missy out on the Hill:

It warms my heart to see everyone enjoying their day and spending quality time together!

Blankets

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It’s the time of year when everyone just wants to curl up with a blanket or ten, chimps included. Earlier today, I posted this photo of Negra to our Facebook page:

This gave me the idea to go through some of our older photos and collect some of the chimps cuddling up. Negra is the biggest blanket enthusiast, but the others enjoy getting comfy too.

Negra:

Jamie:

Jody:

Missy:

Intriguing browse

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This weekend the chimpanzees tried Lemmon’s Willow browse for the first time and they LOVE it! It has this amazing sticky sweet smell that reminds me vividly of hanging out in the shade along the local Yakima River during those warm summer afternoons.
Apparently, if you ask many of the chimpanzees, the leaves (and even some bark) make pretty great eating and wadging materials. Jamie found a dual purpose for the branches today, as I kept catching her using them as long supple tools. Luckily, she kept her mayhem relatively tame and didn’t try to spear any unsuspecting caregivers.

Here’s Jody working on a branch last night:

And Missy expertly snacking on the leaves:

Warm Sunshine & Lemmon’s Willow

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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:

 

Sweet September

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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!