Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Sanctuary

Happy (Early) Birthday, Jeri!

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Today was sponsored by Erin Yuhas who shared this sweet message about her gift:

“I would love to sponsor this day of sanctuary in honor of my Aunt Jeri Abernathy’s birthday (although it’s actually February 29th!) She knows how much I love my chimps and she doesn’t want me to get her anything for her birthday. I figured the best way to get the best of both worlds is to sponsor a day for her birthday! I wish her a very happy birthday and hope she knows how much she means to, just as much as my chimp friends! Love you Aunt Jeri!”

Erin, thank you so much for celebrating your Aunt Jeri and the chimps! We so appreciate your kind heart and the difference you make in the chimps’ lives.

Jeri, a leap year baby! In which case, Missy would probably suggest you leap about all day long. All of us here hope you have the best birthday yet, however you choose to celebrate! 🙂

Missy:

Thanks for the gifts!

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Earlier this month we put out a special request to our supporters to help us come up with little projects for Jamie to work on. Let me tell you, we had some enthusiastic responses from our donors! She’s received satchels, file folders, folios, cases, specially crafted photos, picture books, colored pencils and much much more! While we can’t always get videos or photos of her enjoying all her new enrichment, we did catch her enjoying her newest journal just this morning.

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who has helped enrich the boss!

The power of the fort

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“Where did Jamie go?” Those are four words you never really want to utter. But if you know where Jamie is, and she thinks you don’t know where she is, then the fun begins.

Jamie loves to build fort-like nests surrounding herself with all manner of things. Her kitchenette, a barrel, a shopping cart, whatever strikes her fancy. And occasionally she builds them with the pretty clear intention of having some privacy and taking a timeout from everyone. Something we can probably all relate to and of course, who doesn’t love a good fort?

After lunch the playroom was particularly quiet and while we assumed everyone was tucked away somewhere napping, I couldn’t see Jamie. Then I just caught a slight motion of blankets being spun into a nest behind this barrel:

In these instances, Jamie seems to take particular satisfaction in our seeming inability to see her. She grows very still as we call for her and occasionally slowly peeks around the corner at us when she thinks we cannot see her. We get it. So we just go along. I mean imagine living with six family members day in and day out, not to mention a variety of humans hanging around all day. Who wouldn’t need some privacy? Hence, the power of the fort.

Another Snow Day

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Sundays are definitely made for slow mornings and lounging. Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest had another nice relaxing snow day, which also meant that the chimps where hard to find. Luckily, I was able to find Negra and Annie though!

We feel the same way Negra:

Annie enjoying some morning snow:


Happy Birthday, Kim!

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Kim Williams sponsored this day of sanctuary and shared a sweet message about her gift:

 “A belated birthday gift to my beloved chimpanzees – especially Negra! XX”

Kim, thank you so much for sharing your own special day with the chimpanzees. What a lovely thing to do. All of us here hope your day was a special as you help make the chimpanzees’ days. And months and years and lives.

Queen Neggie:

Negra Time

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Negra isn’t featured on the blog as much as some of the other chimpanzees because she’s often not part of “the action” at the chimp house (unless it’s spring and she’s outside eating grass – we can’t wait for those days!).

Negra seems to prefer solo quiet time. She also spends a lot of her time high up where it’s not as easy to get good photos and video.

And she operates on her own schedule. While the rest of the group might eagerly line up by the raceway in the morning to get the first pick of the snow, Negra instead chooses to go back to bed.

But then, an hour or so later, we’ll see her with some snow of her own – maybe she ventured out and retrieved it herself, or many she convinced one of her friends to hand over some of their haul (she can be very convincing). Either way, she doesn’t miss out on what each day has to offer, she’s just on Negra Time.

Playful Missy and Visitors from Ngamba Island

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It’s been a busy week at the sanctuary! Contractors are finishing the human areas of the Phase 1 expansion now that a back ordered fixture is finally in and Missy, as you can see in the video above, is keeping us busy playing very competitive games of tug-o-war.

We were also fortunate to host two guests from Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Uganda. Ngamba is home to 49 orphaned chimpanzees and through their NGO, the Chimpanzee Sanctuary and Wildlife Conservation Trust, they also do incredible work protecting wild chimpanzees through both field conservation and community education. Irene and Joseph have been visiting various primate sanctuaries while in the United States and they were able to spend the past week volunteering with us.

While here, they were also kind enough to share inspiring stories of their work with the students and faculty of the Primate Behavior and Ecology program at Central Washington University.

If you don’t already, I’d encourage you to follow Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary on Facebook and support their efforts to protect chimpanzees. Many thanks, Irene and Joseph, from all of us at CSNW (especially Jody)!