Today, our excavator laid the driveway that will lead up to the gate on Young’s Hill, the chimps’ new 2-acre enclosure. Tomorrow, we’ll begin digging the 1,200 foot long trench along the primary fence line. Spring is finally here!
young's hill
The view from Young’s Hill
Posts for climbing structures
Keith came out for the day and he and J.B. spent a snowy afternoon preparing fir logs donated by Dan Sherman (thanks, Dan!) to be used as the posts for climbing structures on Young’s Hill.
Here are the logs and a view of a couple of the old buildings on the property.
And here are some of them “planted” in the ground on Young’s Hill. They’re about 10-feet tall. We probably won’t be able to work on the climbing structures until spring, but it’s pretty cool to see the start of things going up on the hill. Thanks to Karen and Don Young, Euan and Bethany Menzies and all who donated toward the 2-acre habitat-to-come!
Online Auction ends in just 6 hours!
Get your bids in NOW! Check it out, make some calls to your friends, and let’s reach our $25,000 goal – this counts donations to Young’s Hill as well as bids on our fabulous auction items.
Below is the video that Jonathan Houser made about the Young’s Hill project, with music by Robin Washburn.
Thanks for participating in our first-ever online auction and for helping get the chimps Out of the Box!
Young’s Hill – The Dream from Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest on Vimeo.
Grass
The chimps were thrilled to have a grass forage this morning. I am still not sure what’s going to happen when we complete Young’s Hill, and they get to go out onto two acres of grass. Annie may never come back in again!
Foxie took one piece of grass at a time and carried them around like a pirate carrying a knife in his mouth while climbing a ship’s rigging. Strange analogy, I know, but that’s what it looked like.
The chimps eat grass differently than they do other types of food and browse. They take one piece at a time, fold it accordion-style, and swallow it without chewing (often gagging themselves in the process!).
Young’s Hill and Out of the Box
We just sent out an e-news announcement with a link to the video below.
Sign up for our e-newsletter if you didn’t receive the announcement, and
check out the video below to learn about our new dream!
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