Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

retirement

James and the Giant Beet

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Ok – the title of this post was maybe a bit of a stretch to reference James and the Giant Peach.

I do use the nickname James for Jamie, but, as you’ll see in the photos below, it wasn’t really a giant beet, plus one of the photos is of Missy’s hand, but still – pretty great photos of a pretty great chimpanzee REALLY enjoying the beets that volunteer Patti brought.

It is in the high 90s today, so most of the chimpanzees quickly foraged for their lunch on Young’s Hill and brought their haul into the cooler greenhouse to enjoy, though Jamie made multiple trips to make sure she had found all of the beets.

Jamie admiring beet

Jamie looking away eating beet

Jamie eating beet in profile

Jamie getting all she can out of a beet

 

Missy’s hand:

Missy hand holding beet

 

back to Jamie:

Jamie in doorway eating beet

Jamie enjoying beet

Jamie close up eating beet

Missy Chimpanzee on the Move

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It is such an incredible joy to see Missy on Young’s Hill using all of the structures for climbing and leaping and balancing and just sitting up high. She does not waste any opportunity to get the most out of the chance to move and explore.

J.B.’s description of Missy as, “a spring that was coiled up for decades, just waiting to be released” remains perfect. Just see for yourself in the photos that J.B. took this morning during a forage on the hill. Go, Missy, Go!

Missy climbing

Missy climbing post

Missy leaping

Missy balancing on fire hose

Missy balancing on fire hose back turned

MIssy eating lettuce

Missy eating lettuce top of cabin

 

 

Big Step

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A big step forward for chimpanzees today. The NIH has decided to accept most of the Institute of Medicine’s recommendations proposed in January that include the retirement of the vast majority of chimpanzees supported by the federal government. Read the NIH press release here and the full report here.

Jody before and today

It is unfortunate that the NIH plans to hold fifty chimpanzees for possible continued research, as recommended by the IOM. We don’t see fifty as a generic number – we know that each of those fifty chimpanzees is an individual who should live out the rest of their life in sanctuary, but, overall, today represents  a leap forward for chimpanzees.  There will be no immediate breeding within that group of fifty and the NIH will revisit whether they believe it’s necessary to maintain that group in five years. The NIH also did not accept the  recommendation to provide 1,000 square of space per chimp for those chimpanzees who do remain in research – the NIH will be gathering more information on that recommendation.

Young’s Hill getting closer one pole at a time

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Last week Keith, CSNW’s founder, and volunteer Laura helped J.B. set some poles for the fence around Young’s Hill. We are building a double fence system with a total of 220 poles, so J.B.’s going to need a lot of help in the coming weeks! If you are interested in doing some physical labor volunteering now or in the future, please contact J.B. – he’d love to hear from you.

Here’s a photo of the first set of poles that went up:

first double poles

Today Denice and some terrific volunteers from Seattle University’s Animal Advocates and the Seattle Animal Defense League are setting more poles. As a big bonus to all of us, they brought vegan donuts from Mighty O in Seattle!! Mighty O donated donuts for last year’s Out of the Box auction Dessert Dash and they were recently crowned the Food Network’s Donut Champions, so this is no small treat for us humans.

Anyway, enough about delicious vegan donuts. Back to the hill. Below is a photo of today’s volunteers setting posts.

volunteers setting posts

And here’s a photo of Negra and Annie. Negra was watching the poles going up. With the two greenhouse panels off, the chimps can see all the work being done on the hill.

Negra Annie looking to Young's Hill

It’s not all about poles, either. If you received our recent e-newsletter, you know that all of the topsoil left over from digging the trench for the primary fence was utilized to make some mounds on the hill. To put these mounds in perspective, here’s a photo of J.B. and Jackie on one set (imagine them as chimps!):

JB Jackie on mounds

The chimps’ stuff

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We leave out a lot of toys, blankets and other stuff for the chimps each day, and they pick what they want out of it. It’s interesting to me that there are such individual variations in what the chimps’ choose to hold on to for the day, or sometimes just a moment. I often think of the years and years before they came to the sanctuary when they had nothing.

Here’s Annie staking claim to a couple of clean blankets:

Annie's blankets

and enjoying her spoils:

annie lying on blankets in greenhouse

Jody with a new piece of enrichment – woven and coiled jute from new Canadian friends:

jody with jute

Burrito usually chooses things he can put in his mouth:

burrito toy in mouth in the greenhouse

Burrito toy in mouth upside

and here’s Negra lying in her nest of blankets – Jody’s not the only chimpanzee who does the yoga “happy baby” pose:

Negra happy baby pose

greenhouse lounging

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This is the time of year when the “greenhouse” (the outdoor area converted to a solar oasis with lexan panels) really shines – literally and figuratively. Spring is really windy in Cle Elum and today was particularly blustery. But the greenhouse is completely protected from the wind. Since it was sunny, it was downright balmy in there. Perfect lounging weather.

Burrito, who once shunned the greenhouse, spent the entire day out there. Here he is getting every last morsel of food from an avocado peel:
burrito eating avocado

Jody also relaxed outside in the greenhouse all day, enjoying the fresh straw:

jody lay in straw

jody up close with straw in greenhouse