Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Primates

GAPA event tonight in Seattle

by

Come to this talk with Debra Durham tonight! I’ll be there and will talk about the sanctuary to attendees.

Primatologist Debra Durham, Ph.D., will discuss her work with chimpanzee sanctuaries in Washington and around the world. She’ll also explain why we need to urge Sen. Maria Cantwell to support the Great Ape Protection Act (GAPA), a bill that would prohibit invasive research on chimpanzees and release about 500 chimpanzees to sanctuaries.gapa handout

When: Wednesday, Jan. 20, 7:30 – 9 p.m.
Where: Seattle Library
1000 4th Ave., Level 4, Room 2
Seattle, WA 98104
Tel: 206-386-4636

For more information about the event and how to get involved in advocating for GAPA, please see the Physicians Committee for Responsible medicine website: http://pcrm.org/resch/gapa/involved.html.

Why it’s called enrichment

by

Foxie loves troll dolls and seems to always be thinking  of new things to do with them. The video below shows her playing with me this morning. Clearly, the term “enrichment” applies to troll dolls – they certainly do enrich Foxie’s life (and mine as a result).

Foxie and her troll dolls from Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest on Vimeo.

Everyone’s excited about Burrito’s birthday

by

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.

Who’s in your wallet

by

This is in response to a question from Shari on the last post. Below are the images of all of the credit card options with the chimpanzees names above them. We can only have five designs at a time, and Jody is not one of the images. I decided since her image is on most of our merchandise (t-shirts, soon-to-be-added bumper stickers, and tote bags), it was okay to leave her out of this first round of designs. Thanks for helping out the sanctuary by applying for one of these cards!

Burrito

Negra

Missy and Annie

Foxie

Jamie

For the love of cowboy boots

by

Quick Jamie story of the day: I had picked up the front rooms to prepare for cleaning and brought the enrichment over to the washing tub. Jamie saw me from the playroom and started gesturing emphatically. I knew just what she was trying to tell me – I had one of her cowboy boots among the enrichment items and she wanted it back.

I did a brief cleaning job and offered to throw the boot up to her in the space above the big human doors to the playroom. Instead, she looked at me and ran outside. I came around and threw the boot on the roof. She climbed up and got the boot down and carried it with her most of the day. I’ve never seen Jamie ask for something specific that wasn’t food – she REALLY likes her new birthday cowboy boots. Thanks, Stephanie P.!

Smiling?

by

For me, going to Blockbuster or Hollywood Video to look for a movie is always an interesting experience. It never fails- I will see a movie with a chimp on the cover “smiling”. This facial expression that we, as humans, understand as a happy face is not a happy face for a chimpanzee. A “human smile” displayed by a chimpanzee is actually a “fear grimace” and is displayed when a chimp is afraid or excited. When a chimpanzee is used for entertainment purposes, they are trained to fear grimace for the camera. I thought, in this regard, I would post some pictures to demonstrate the difference between a fear grimace and a chimpanzee smile.

mvp-chimp-pic2

Below is an older picture of Jody displaying a fear grimace. If I had to guess, I would say she was afraid someone might steal her watermelon…
jody-fear-grimace1

Here is a picture of Jody with a playface or a chimpanzee smile. THIS is a happy chimpanzee:
jody-playface

and a happy Foxie:
foxie-playface

New view

by

The chimpanzees got to check out the new window today. The window replaced an extra door that went from the playroom to the outdoor area. J.B. still had some work to do on the outdoor area side, so we went out to say hello to the chimps through the window. In the meantime, the Poppoff crew was still hard at work in the mud (but no rain today) getting things ready for the foundation that will be part of the greenhouse structure going over the outdoor area. Workin workin again!

Jamie, of course, was the first to inspect the window

jamie-at-new-window-from-playroom_mg_4578

Jody was also very curious

jody-and-jamie-at-window_mg_4584

It’s difficult to see, but Jamie and J.B. are “touching” hands through the glass in the photo below

jamie-jb-hands-new-window-web

For context – here is a zoomed-out view. The new window is to the left, the chimp door that we use from the playroom to the outdoor area is to the right. The two windows on top are just above the catwalk in the playroom.

outdoor-area-door-and-new-window_mg_4604

Foxie likes the new window too

foxie-through-new-window_mg_4618

Many of the chimps watched J.B. working all day. Below is Jamie making sure J.B. is doing a good job (or maybe seeing how things come apart!)

jamie-looking-window-jb