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Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary for primates.

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primate awareness network

A PAN-tastic Group of Humans

May 16, 2021 by Anthony

It’s now been well over a year since we began the “new normal” style of sanctuary operations.

The objective of these changes has been to mitigate the risk of transmitting COVID-19 to the chimpanzees. Of course, the nuclear staff cannot stop interacting with the chimps entirely, so we’ve found other ways to meet their daily needs while maintaining a bubble of safety around them. To facilitate this social “quarantine,” we had to sadly cancel many on-site initiatives powered by our extended community of volunteers, interns, and local supporters.

The need for social distancing hasn’t stopped these people from contributing to the organization on a Major-League level, though.

In a recent blog post, Diana described the remarkable work that our volunteer corps is continuing to do during the pandemic. We know that many of the volunteers and interns would be helping at to take care of the chimps if public health conditions allowed for it, but they’ve found ways to help the sanctuary regardless. Take that, SARS-CoV-2!

Today’s blog is dedicated to the members of Central Washington University’s Primate Awareness Network (PAN), who have provided crucial support this year by planning creative and fun events for the sanctuary. This year, they arranged an art contest and exhibition at Gallery One in Ellensburg and a smash fundraiser at Dru Bru’s new taproom in Cle Elum. They did all this while hosting a virtual primatology conference, collecting enrichment materials for the chimps from locations around town, helping CSNW staff to enter welfare data into the sanctuary’s new database, and continuing their mission of advocating for primate conservation and welfare via social media outreach. Given all they’ve done for us, the least we can do is to thank this year’s PAN cohort of Ashton, Calvin, Carson, Courtney A., Courtney G., Danna, Jenna, Kelsie, Malcolm, Margaux, Riley and Sydney for all their dedication and enthusiasm.

(To learn more about the Primate Awareness Network, check them out on Facebook or @cwu_primate on Instagram and Twitter. You can see flyers and photos from a couple of their recent events below!)

In addition to heartfelt appreciation, we owe some of them cheerful congratulations as well. They’ve all been advancing their respective research projects outside the sanctuary despite the turmoil of the past year, and all of them are embarking on new adventures, including (but not limited to):

Ashton recently co-authored a paper about COVID-19’s effect on wildlife in the journal Mammal Review and began working at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado.
(Fun Fact: CSNW board member Dr. Lori Sheeran is Ashton’s advisor and also co-authored the paper!)

Carson has been accepted into the Applied Anthropology doctoral program at Texas State University where she will study the microbial ecology of free-ranging chimpanzees in Africa.

Jenna has just accepted a full-time caregiver position at fellow NAPSA member sanctuary Center for Great Apes in Florida and will be starting in June.

Riley, after he defends his graduate thesis, will be getting married this summer!
(Jenna suggested I link to his registry but we don’t want to mix it up with our own Wish List, causing Riley and his partner to receive enrichment puzzles and cleaning supplies while the chimps get new bed linens and cookware.)

It’s sad to watch this cohort of students move on without a proper farewell at the sanctuary, but we’re excited to see the places they will go, the things they will do, and the people they will become. Hopefully, local conditions keep trending in the right direction so that we can gradually incorporate volunteers, interns and visitors back into our routine without increasing the risk to the chimps and staff. For now, we’re just happy to express our gratitude for these people and the time they’ve donated to the sanctuary!

Filed Under: Advocacy, Caregivers, Construction, Events, Thanks, Volunteers-Interns Tagged With: animal rescue, animal rights, Animal Welfare, central washington university, chimp, chimp sanctuary, chimpanzee, chimpanzee sanctuary, Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, chimpanzees, csnw, graduate program, primate awareness network, Primate behavior, Sanctuary

A Special Visit and Some Special Ordinary Moments

April 14, 2018 by Diana

There are so many little moments in any given day that we caregivers find endearing or funny or amazing or otherwise noteworthy.

Early this morning, for example, I saw Burrito sampling the grass for the first time this spring. I was overjoyed because I know what’s to come in the next couple of months – the chimpanzees sitting outside and stuffing their mouths with handfuls of grass. It’s one of my favorite times of year. I didn’t get a photo this morning, but you can bet there will be many to come.

At lunch, the chimpanzees had a very exciting visitor: Dr. Birute Galdikas, the famous anthropologist who is for orangutans what Dian Fossy was for gorillas and Jane Goodall is for chimpanzees. These three remarkable women were initially supported in their observational research of great apes by Louis Leakey and they each changed the collective view of our closest living relatives. Dr. Galdikas, nearly fifty years after starting her field research in Borneo, still spends more than half of each year in Indonesia running the field site and directly working to protect orangutans in their native habitat. Much of the rest of her time is spent raising awareness about the perilous situation facing orangutans in the wild and raising funds for Orangutan Foundation International.

Dr. Galdikas spoke last night to students and community members at nearby Central Washington University, thanks to one of the most unique primatology programs in the world. We were so honored that she chose to visit the sanctuary during her brief stay. I think she made a connection with Burrito, which was very sweet.

I neglected to get my own photos of her visit, maybe because I was flustered to be in her presence, but luckily others had their phones at the ready. So, below is a photo from Katelyn of Jake Funkhouser, Dr. Galdikas, and Ruth Linsky. Ruth and Jake are the students who arranged for Dr. Galdikas’ visit to CWU through the Primate Awareness Network.

Later in the afternoon, Anna and I donned some new favorite boots of Jamie’s and took off on a walk around the hill. Missy and Annie came out too and proceeded to twirl and slap and wrestle their way across the hill. Guess what? I didn’t have a camera in hand for those moments either. But, please do take a second to picture it – they were having a great time.

You may be wondering at this point whether I visually captured any part of the day at all to share with you. I did!

Jody was on a mission all day to snack on some of the spruce trees on the hill. I saw her at least three times going back and forth to the “Christmas tree lot” with pieces of tree in her mouth. She looked very satisfied by her foraging

Filed Under: Jody, News, Volunteers, Young's Hill Tagged With: birute galdikas, central washington university, chimp, chimpanzee, northwest, primate awareness network, Sanctuary

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Cle Elum, WA 98922
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509-699-0728
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EIN: 68-0552915

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