Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
The celebration continues! Kathleen Kemper also sponsored yesterday in honor of the sanctuary’s five year anniversary! We are thrilled by the overwhelming support and positive comments that have been flooding in. Kathleen, thank you so much for your generosity and for helping us to usher in the beginning of the next five years of sanctuary, and beyond, for these amazing beings.
Today has been an incredible day. We’re so moved to see all the love for the Cle Elum Seven as the Give Five donations keep rolling in. As of right now, we’ve raised $10,550 toward our summer goal of $35,000! We’re asking for just $5 as a pledge of support for the chimps and the sanctuary (and as a happy birthday wish for Negra!).
It wouldn’t be a CSNW holiday without a party, of course, and the chimpanzees are expert partiers with five years of practice under their belts. Volunteer caregivers Denice, Seana, and Patti came this morning to help the chimps celebrate. Denice dressed up the morning fruit smoothie and put it in festive plastic shot glasses.
Patti brought several pinatas, including this one to honor Negra’s birthday.
Seana setting up the party in the greenhouse:
Denice:
Patti:
Missy was very interested in the pinata, but she had some nuts to eat first, so she held on to it.
Missy drinking smoothie:
Jamie:
Foxie enjoying some raspberries:
Annie with a pinata:
As for the birthday girl, she has had a pretty great day. Here she is with some fruit smoothie:
And with a tiara pinata (she is the Queen, after all):
After the party Negra explored Young’s Hill, venturing so high up the hill that we lost sight of her for awhile.
And after all that activity, she took a well-deserved nap.
We really can’t say what all of your support means to us. You enable us to do what we do. Here’s to another five years!
Today was also generously sponsored by Jordan Bower, who shared the following message: “I am making this donation to honor the Cle Elum Seven’s Caregivers (paid and volunteer) for all of their tireless efforts of love and commitment. Without you Annie, Burrito, Foxie, Jamie, Jody, Missy and Negra would not have the wind in their hair, yummy food in their tummies or love for their souls. Thank you.” Jordan, thank you so much for your kind words. And thank you Jordan, and all of our supporters, for enabling us to give the chimpanzees hope, love, home and sanctuary.
Watch the video below in celebration of 5 years of sanctuary life for Queen Negra, Jamie, Jody, Annie, Missy, Foxie, and Burrito.
Today is the fifth anniversary of Negra and the Cle Elum Seven’s new lives in sanctuary. It’s amazing what sunshine and good food and comfort can do for these inspiring and resilient chimps. Today is the day to Give Five for our Queen on her birthday! Stay tuned for a video that we will be posting in just a little bit in celebration of five years of sanctuary.
Negra’s History:
Negra was captured from the wild, presumably in 1973, however she could be even older. Buckshire leased her to White Sands Research Center in March 1982 where she got the tattoo “#CA0041.”
WSRC started breeding Negra with Mack right away in April 1982, just one month after her arrival. Mack was a popular breeder – he was also paired at WSRC with Annie, Foxie, Jody, and is Burrito’s father. Tarzan, Rufus, and Spock are just a few other male breeder names we see in many of the chimps’ records. In between transfers to breeding pairs the females were sometimes housed alone, and sometimes with another female. At different points Annie was with Foxie and with Jody, Foxie was with Jody, Jody was with Negra, and Negra was with Karen, who was Burrito’s mother. The cross-over that we read about in these records is interesting, but also very sad. It only emphasizes how much these chimpanzees were used over and over to create more generations of lab chimps.
On November 29, 1983, technicians discovered Negra was pregnant. She gave birth to Heidi in January 1984.
1/8/84 – Delivered healthy female infant #91 Heidi. Removed & taken to nursery.
Heidi was taken immediately away, but Negra was able to stay with Angel (see below) for five whole days.
9/4/85 – Healthy infant born this date.
9/9/85 – Healthy infant removed and taken to nursery – female #126 Angel.
In early 1986 the scribbled notes indicate the lab techs believed Negra has some kind of infectious disease due to loose stool and negative parasite tests, and she was moved to isolation on March 31, 1986.
3/31/86 – Dr. ordered animal removed from main colony and placed in isolation for further testing.
The lab technicians took blood from Negra regularly, knocking her down each time. They took liver biopsies, which meant surgery. They tested her for hepatitis C on June 2, 1987, and for some reason the results did not return until over six months later on January 12, 1988. The entry for that date concluded that there was no evidence for the suspicion that Negra had hepatitis C. Negra had been housed in isolation for over a year and a half due to incorrect blood work. At this point, they transferred her back to the main chimp colony.
1/14/88 – Transferred from Quarantine to Bldg. 300 (Main colony) this date.
1/14/88 – Enter cage #28 by herself. Home again.
Negra was transferred away from quarantine but was put back into the cage she had been in during that year and half, by herself. At this point it was considered her home to be alone in cage #28. Being alone didn’t last long, though. The next week, she was thrown back into breeding pairs.
10/17/89 – Infant born approximately 10:00am, taken from mother and removed to nursery. Infant boy. #205 Noah.
Even after living in isolation, undergoing tests, and having babies taken from her, WSRC still took more from her. In early January 1992, they used her in a study that involved injecting a serum near her lymph nodes in her left leg. By March they had done this five times, and prepped Negra for surgery to remove the nodes. As if that weren’t enough, just a couple months later, Negra was transferred again to another breeding pair. She did not have any more babies however, and left WSRC/Coulston with Annie, Foxie, and Jody to return to Buckshire on August 12, 1996.
Before coming to Cle Elum, Keith, J.B., Diana, and Sarah all met the chimps while they were still at Buckshire. Read this post to see what Diana said about Negra back then.
Negra, arriving at CSNW exactly five years ago today:
Jamie and Negra at the barn doors:
Cage #28 is no longer Negra’s home. Now her home is Young’s Hill, where she’s really finding her place under the sun. It has taken her a little while to be fully comfortable on the hill, but this summer, she’s exploring and spending more and more time outside. Some days she’s hard to find! Seeing Negra, the honorary Queen of CSNW, able to relax and enjoy her home fills everyone around her with joy. She is the epitome of CSNW’s philosophy: Hope. Love. Home… Sanctuary.
Negra getting some reassurance from Jamie:
Today was sponsored by Tracy Headley. Tracy was the first person to respond to our Give Five Day campaign and chose to sponsor this very special day in honor of our 5 year anniversary. We have so much to celebrate today because not only is it the sanctuary’s anniversary, it is also our beloved Queen Negra’s 40th birthday! None of which would be possible without the support of so many wonderful people. Thank you so much for such a wonderful start to the day, Tracy! And speaking of our amazing supporters, we also have a second sponsor for today which will be posted after the celebrations get under way!
Missy cracks us up every day.
She is super active, but at times can be calm, gentle and is very intense and serious about grooming sessions. She also likes to use tools to groom herself. She doesn’t sit still for long though—every day she runs so fast around the playroom chasing Annie or on the hill just for the fun of it. Like Burrito and Foxie, she’s pretty goofy, has a great sense of humor, and will even sometimes crack herself up. She’s very energetic and has the ability to get just about anyone to play with her.
On Young’s Hill she seems to prefer to be an acrobat, and often times will walk along the firehoses like a tight rope rather than the structures themselves. To her that probably is just more fun. It’s awesome so see her enjoying herself so much.
Missy’s birthday is unknown but it’s estimated she was born in 1975, and Buckshire purchased her from a private breeder. Missy has two tattoos: “CH504” on her chest, which was from LEMSIP; and “#133” which is from another lab, possibly White Sands. We only have a few records from Buckshire and LEMSIP, and nothing prior to 1987, though it is likely she was either at LEMSIP or another lab previously. While at LEMSIP she was used in hepatitis vaccine trials and used as a breeder. In 1987 she gave birth to her first infant on record:
April 25, 1987: Male infant live born Day 229 of gestation. Showed a great deal of affection towards the infant but did not know now to carry him to breast or suckle him. Her behavior did not improve over the following week, during which time nutritional maintenance was given, and the baby was removed permanently to the nursery for rearing.
December 12, 1987: Small amount of placental tissue aborted, accompanied by uterine bleeding (very early gestation.)
June 11, 1989: Female infant born Day 229 of gestation. Did not pick up infant at all, which was therefore removed to the nursery for rearing.
July 14, 1991: Stillborn female infant Day 225 of gestation.
In Late 1992 she moved back to Buckshire, where she lived, warehoused, until being rescued by Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest in 2008. Though her records do not indicate she was being used in any active biomedical research protocols during these years at Buckshire, just like the other chimpanzees there, Missy was routinely knocked down for blood draws, physicals, and tuberculosis tests.
Missy arriving at CSNW in 2008:
Missy and her best friend Annie playing in the early sanctuary days:
Today Missy is brave, easy-going, playful, and full of energy. It’s very hard to think of her stuck in small cages no bigger than a coat closet when she runs, full speed, across the open-air enclosure of Young’s Hill and scrambles up tall posts without a second thought.
Annie and Missy now get to play with no cage above their head:
And at the end of the day, she can relax in peace:
Give Five for Missy. $5 pays for one meal, and Missy loves fresh produce that provides her the calories she needs to keep her speed up!
