Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
Today was sponsored by Tracy Headley who is “celebrating starting summer by seeing a pal.” Thank you so much for including the chimpanzees in your fun, Tracy! I think your Chimpanzee Pal, Foxie, will be celebrating the start of summer with her pals right along with you!
When I’m describing Jody’s personality to new chimp house volunteers, I often say that she’s a totally endearing combination of vulnerable and intimidating. If she thinks you have wronged her in some way, she will not hesitate to tell you so with a mouthful of water in your face. If she’s feeling feisty or on edge, she might try to poke you with her long fingernails. At the same time, if there’s tension in the group and she’s feeling unsure, she often seeks reassurance from her caregivers. And first thing every morning she approaches us and greets us warmly with several seconds of intense, prolonged eye contact. No matter her mood, she has a face I never tire of looking at.
The Cle Elum Seven are celebrating freedom today! Not long ago, they spent their holidays in lab cages. Today they foraged on Young’s Hill, lounged in the warm greenhouse, and played with friends.
We kicked off the day with a party in the greenhouse this morning. Volunteer caregivers Denice and Patti brought food and decorations. Fruit smoothie was set out in tiny plastic shot glasses, and we put out paper trays of apples, grapes, berries, and melon.
Burrito:
Negra:
Jody:
Annie:
Missy:
Jamie:
Later we served a special holiday lunch of vegan hot dogs, dill pickles, and bell peppers stuffed with pasta salad. We do our best to keep the chimpanzees healthy by limiting their diet almost entirely to fresh produce, but we thought we’d splurge a little today.
Everyone gathered as Patti got ready to serve:
Foxie:
Negra:
Annie:
Missy:
Burrito:
Thanks again to Jody Maxey for thinking of the chimps and sponsoring today. Happy 4th, everyone!
Today was sponsored by Jody Maxey in honor of the Cle Elum Seven and their independence! It’s a joy and an honor to celebrate this with the chimpanzees. What a wonderful thing to do, Jody, thank you so much! The celebration is just getting underway so be sure to tune in later today for pictures of the festivities!
We appear to be on the downside of our heat wave here in Cle Elum (at least for today), but it’s still too hot for the chimpanzees to get excited about doing very much. They haven’t even been spending much time in the greenhouse, preferring the comfort of the cooler playroom. So today we decided to break out the snow cone machine and filled paper cups with shaved ice, berries, and coconut water. This, the chimpanzees got pretty excited about and there were pant hoots and food squeaks galore. (Some of these may have even come from the staff and volunteers). After everyone collected their snow-cones it became very quiet with the exception of a lot of slurping!
Foxie enjoying her snow-cone (with Negra in the background).
Burrito was still excited in this photo (you can tell because his hair is pilo-erect, which means standing on end).
CSNW is a really unique place. We have seven amazing beings under our care, whom as you know are of utmost importance around here and truly run the show! Well, Jamie does anyway 😉 And we love to share stories about each of their personalities and their day-to-day lives.
For instance, today has been a continuation of the heat wave that has hit Cle Elum, but before the hot afternoon sun came around we did a breakfast forage on the hill which everyone loved. Here’s Foxie enjoying a piece of grapefruit:
After we cleaned the playroom, Denice and I filled a kiddie pool with cool water, and harvested some black currents we have growing in the garden. We spread the currents around as a forage and also dropped some into the water. Jody and Jamie especially loved it!
CSNW is also pretty big on education and advocacy. Eyes on Apes is our advocacy group and we really want to help make a difference for apes everywhere. The Cle Elum Seven truly serve as ambassadors for the life that all chimpanzees in captivity deserve, and for their wild counterparts who need our help to protect their habitat. This is only something we can achieve with your help! If you haven’t joined the Take Action e-mail list, do that today! Share our Facebook page, and re-tweet our plea for more followers on Twitter.
Today was sponsored by one of our wonderful supporters in Canada, Jenna Miles! It thrills and amazes me that these very special beings have gone from spending decades suffering in biomedical research, unknown to most, to living in sanctuary and being loved and cared for by so many people around the world. Thank you so much for thinking of the chimpanzees, Jenna! Negra (left) and Jody (right) send pant hoots, along with everyone else.
