Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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Sanctuary

Kittitas County Fire District #1 visits the chimps

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Today we were pleased to have Kittitas County Fire District #1 from Thorp stop by the sanctuary to visit with the chimps. The crew, along with Kittitas County Fire District #7 (whom we hope to also have out someday soon), were the first to respond on the sanctuary property the day of the Taylor Bridge Fire. We were super happy to have them out again, this time on a much calmer note. The chimps were pretty enriched by their fancy Nomex wildland garb!

Jamie was especially interested in all the boots

And Jody came over and gave them all a very friendly greeting. I think she was charmed by all the men with facial hair. 😉

We’ll never be able to express to this crew how much they mean to us and how much we appreciate the hard work these and all of the firefighters did to help contain the Taylor Bridge Fire. You guys will always be heroes in our book!

Try Something New Today

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Jamie decided that she would start Year Two on Young’s Hill by trying some new things. She started by testing out a small structure we built this summer.

Then she moved on to the bamboo. I don’t know if it’s a difference in skill or just a difference in weight, but Missy made it much higher before the whole thing toppled over.

Either way, she seemed to be having fun.

Earlier this summer, when Ben and the Boy Scouts were building the new bridge, I put up some log posts around the enclosure. Some of the logs were far too heavy to lift with our tractor, so I cut them up into smaller pieces and made little stumps for the chimps to sit on. Brilliant idea, J.B., I thought to myself, as I patted myself on the back. And then three months went by without the chimps even looking in their direction.

Well, today was the day that stumps became cool. Everybody was doing it. First up was Foxie:

Then Annie:

And then, farther down the hill, Missy and Annie together:

The chimps are funny that way. They require you to be patient.

When we built Young’s Hill, I had dreams of the chimps going out in the morning and not coming back until evening. But they weren’t ready for that. To them, Young’s Hill is an exciting playground, a wide open space that is both exhilarating and frightening. But they can only take so much excitement before they retreat to the greenhouse to relax in the comfort of something more familiar to them.

Over the last year, they’ve pushed their boundaries and conquered some of their fears. Each day they try something new.

This morning, a year and a day after going outside for the first time, the chimps went out onto the hill in a group and many of them didn’t come back until lunch time.

That’s progress.

Wildfire update

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Just a quick update to let you know that the sanctuary is not in any danger from the wildfires currently burning across Washington State. However, the fires are creating hazardous air quality in some areas, including around the sanctuary on occasion. During these times, we have been keeping the chimpanzees indoors with the ventilation system recirculating and filtering the indoor air. Fluctuations in local weather patterns mean that the smoke conditions can change by the hour. Thankfully, the chimps are able to go outside most of the time.

Our thoughts are with the people affected by the current wildfires, including the heroic firefighters. For once, we are really looking forward to winter.

 

 

Young’s Hill Anniversary Forage

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If you were on Facebook this morning, you might have noticed that I posted a link to the video from the chimps’ first day out on Young’s Hill—exactly one year ago today! I can’t believe how quickly this year has gone by—I remember that day like it was yesterday. A lot has happened in the last year and we’ve seen so many changes in the chimps. Burrito hasn’t been the most confident in the open air but he is going farther and farther. Missy is a fearless running machine. Annie has gotten to walk through grass that she hadn’t seen since her infancy in Africa. Jody and Foxie were both hesitant in the beginning but will now spend hours exploring the hill. Jamie never showed any hesitation to exploring every inch of the hill, and protecting it from intruders (deer on the other side of the fence). Negra still doesn’t spend too much extended time out there, but she goes out most days first thing and soaks in some sun before heading back in to her favorite spot in the greenhouse or inside the playroom. Today, she was the first one out when I opened the door! She quickly grabbed some forage and went back in before I started filming, so I don’t have any Negra footage, but I caught shots of all the others enjoying their anniversary forage.

I can’t wait to see what changes and growth this next year will bring. Any ideas?

 

The many faces of Foxie

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Chimps, just like humans, have really expressive faces. Here at CSNW, Foxie definitely has one of the most expressive faces, many of which we’ve dubbed “Foxie’s cute face” or “Foxie’s sweet face.” Here’s a compilation of Foxie faces I found today, stretching back a couple of years:

Foxie’s “I got a new troll” face:

Foxie with a mouthful of food:

Foxie’s relaxed face:

Foxie’s “intense face”:

Foxie’s play face: (She is wrestling with Jamie)

Foxie’s sleepy smooshed face:

Foxie’s hoot face:

Foxie’s up close cute face:

Objects of Desire

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First of all, I would like to direct your attention to the right side of this page. If you scroll down, past the announcements and look just past the e-newsletter sign-up, you will see a newly added feature to our blog! You can now plug your email address into that box over the “subscribe” button, click “subscribe,” then check your email. You should receive a notice from wordpress.com very quickly (check your spam folder if it doesn’t show up in a few minutes), then you just follow the directions in that email and, voila – you’ll receive blog posts by email as soon as they are posted! And there’s a button right at the bottom of the email when you get a blog post to click in order to comment on the post. It’s pretty cool. You should try it out.

Now, I’d like to direct your attention to Jamie…

Jamie’s love of boots shows no signs of fading. As we’ve mentioned before, her favorite pair switches frequently. Because I’ve had a cold, I haven’t been in the chimp house much in the last couple of weeks, so I wasn’t sure which pair were at the top of her favorite list. When I saw the tall wooden heel of a new pair, I suspected those were her current loves. I was correct, as you can see by the photos below:

Jamie hugging boot 1
Jamie hugging boot 2
Jamie hugging boot 4
Jamie hugging boot 3