Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

primate rescue

Phantom Nesting

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Although we have never witnessed Burrito build his own nest with blankets, as we have mentioned in other blog posts, he will often sleep in someone elses’ nest. Today, I caught Burrito engaging a behavior we, at CSNW, call Phantom Nesting. This is a behavior both he and Foxie occasionally do, which involves clapping and running their clasped hands along the fence, the wall, and/or the floor. Interestingly, this is not a behavior that is seen in the wild, and is rarely seen at all. As far as we know, the behavior has only been observed in a few captive individuals, but definitely seems to be related to nesting.

*Editor’s Note (from Diana): we don’t know much about this behavior. We’d love to hear from others who work with chimpanzees both in captivity and in the wild to find out if you’ve observed nesting behavior in the absence of “normal” nesting material and/or if you’ve seen the same clapping and arm movements described above and shown in the video below.

Negra thanks you

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Below is the photo of Negra taken on the first day she was in sanctuary and a photo taken just an hour ago. Negra continues to change. She’s been very playful and more active this winter than last. She still avoids conflict and likes to have blankets over her head. She has her favorite foods. And she still loves to see humans dance for her.

Negra’s continued signs of contentment are all because of the support that we have had from so many. Without individual donations, the  sanctuary and the quality care that we provide would still be a figment of our imaginations. So much has happened in such a short amount of time, thanks to you all!

Today I wanted to say a special birthday thanks from Negra to a couple of people who are helping to get the stories of the Cle Elum Seven out into the world. Kathy Cochran, whose birthday is today and Margaret Parkinson, who celebrated her birthday on December 31st. These two remarkable ladies collaborated to create the book, Sanctuary: Year One that we have for sale in our online store. Thank you both and happy birthdays!

Negra on her first day at the sanctuary, after living in laboratories for decades

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Negra tonight, finishing up the seeds from her night bag

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Everyone’s excited about Burrito’s birthday

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MailChimp changed their login page to wish Burrito a Happy Birthday! Check it out here.

We have cool new benefits for Chimpanzee Pal sponsors, so if you’d like to sponsor Burrito, like MailChimp does, learn more: https://chimpsnw.org/you_can_help/donate/#ChimpPal

We’ll post all about Burrito’s festivities soon. We decided to make his day all about food (of course!), and his friend Robbi brought some presents too.

Party in the evening

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A few photos of the dinner fun. The Tofurky dinner was a big hit, and of course, everyone loves cranberry sauce. Oh! And shots of punch (see Negra in the third photo below). A day full of food grunting!

Party!

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Here are a few photos from the party thus far. We really can’t thank you all enough for the gifts and donations you sent to make this day so special for the chimpanzees in Cle Elum. They certainly do love a party. Little does Burrito knows his birthday is just around the corner! Hope you’re having a great day too!

Challenge gift for a new window!

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Anna K. is pledging to give $1000 towards a new chimp proof window if we can raise the remaining $1500 to cover the costs of installation. Come on blog readers!! All of us staff will tell you what a huge difference the window makes. It lets in so much more light and the chimps absolutely love it. There are a lot of windows in the playroom with caging that we could replace with clear chimp-proof glass. Imagine seeing Negra looking out at the valley without having to look through bars.

Share Anna’s challenge (below) with others and let’s see how quickly we can give the chimps another view!

From Anna:

Ok – I’m thinking grandly here. But sometimes if you have high aspirations, the universe surprises you by coming through! 🙂

One of the b-i-i-i-g things on CSNW’s wish list is another chimp-proof window. And it’s so heartwarming to see how much the chimps are enjoying the one they have – wouldn’t it be great if they could have another?!

It costs about $2500 total to acquire all the parts/materials/labor to install a chimp-proof window. I’d be willing to seed the pot with $1000. I’m wondering if there might be 15 folks out there each willing to throw in $100?

Any takers? Could we gather enough money by Christmas to collectively give the chimps another window this winter? If you’re interested in participating, please reply here in the blog or contact me off-line at kirchera at hotmail dot com.

Kudos and cyber-hugs will be freely distributed to partners in this venture – I’ve got my fingers crossed for another cage-less view of the world for the chimps!!

Thanksgiving Field Roast Dinner

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As Elizabeth mentioned in yesterday’s blog post, the good people at Field Roast Grain Meat, Co. generously donated some vegan grain meat for the chimp’s Thanksgiving Dinner. Thanks so much Field Roast Grain Meat, Co.! The chimps really enjoyed it!