Posts by Debbie
Take Action Tuesday: Chance in Wolf of Wall Street
This action alert went out earlier today. Not on the mailing list? Sign up for Eyes on Apes Take Action list today to get these alerts straight to your inbox! In the upcoming movie Wolf of Wall Street, Leonardo DiCaprio is seen holding an infant chimpanzee, Chance. It is especially disappointing because Mr. DiCaprio is…
Read MoreWe are thankful for…
We have a lot to be thankful for at CSNW. Our supporters are truly wonderful people who share a passion for the chimps. Whether it’s sending us a fun package, or sponsoring a day, or participating in the Holiday Chimpanzee Pal contest, it all helps. Here’s some gifts we received yesterday. Syd and Diane sent…
Read MoreTake Action Tuesday: Billy chimp on Chelsea Lately
This Action Alert was sent out today to our Eyes on Apes Take Action list—have you joined? Sign up for the list today to get these alerts straight to your inbox! Many of you might have seen that a chimpanzee named Billy was on the show Chelsea Lately last week. Billy was seen rocking and…
Read MoreLevi’s birthday
We love to throw parties for the chimps’ birthdays at the sanctuary. After over five years at CSNW, we’ve really seen how the chimps are “aging backwards” with each passing birthday—which is just all the more reason to celebrate! For five out of the seven, we celebrate an honorary birthday because we don’t know their actual…
Read MoreEye gaze
Primatology is such an interdisciplinary field—it’s a mix of anthropology, psychology, zoology, biology, and ethology—and depending on a primatologist’s background, they have very different interests. If you have an anthropology background for instance, you might be interested nonhuman primates from the perspective of human origins for group size, culture, linguistics, and so on. My background…
Read MoreHappy Chimps
The chimps here are so photogenic and always look happy, as you can see below: Every once in awhile we do catch them when they’ve perhaps woken up on the wrong side of the nest:
Read MoreChimps’ Choice: Clean House!
Every day, we clean the chimpanzees’ enclosures to make sure they can enjoy a nice and tidy home. This is what occupies a large portion of a caregiver’s day—and it takes a lot of elbow grease, but we are happy to do it! As you can imagine we go through cleaning supplies pretty quickly. Some…
Read MoreForest
I love seeing the chimps on Young’s Hill with the forest as a backdrop. Though we can never return them to the wild, we can give them the next best thing. After living decades in the lab, I imagine it must feel pretty great to have open air, sunshine, and blue sky overhead. And the…
Read MoreResearch at Kanyawara
Dr. Zarin Machanda is one of our guest bloggers who is doing a series on the chimpanzees of Kanyawara in the Kibale National Park. Read her introduction post here, to use as a little background for this post about the research they do in the wild. The Kibale chimpanzees were also mentioned in our latest…
Read MoreThe sounds of breakfast
Not unlike humans, chimpanzees are very vocal prior to a meal but fairly mellow during the actual meal. Leading up to it there’s a lot of chatter—consisting of food grunts and food squeaks. And though the occasional word—I mean grunt—is uttered during the meal, mostly there’s just sounds of chewing. This is a sign that…
Read MoreBurrito’s attempts at gymnastics
Chimpanzees are excellent climbers, which you may have figured out from some of the blogs we’ve shared. Foxie and Missy stand out to me as particularly acrobatic, with Foxie’s pirouettes and Missy’s firehose sledding. Just check out some of their amazing skills: Some of the other chimps are not as graceful. You might remember that…
Read MoreSend in the troops
Chimpanzees naturally are very territorial. This is something universal for both wild and captive chimpanzees. When we see territorial displays in the Cle Elum Seven, it’s really wonderful because it means that they are not only exhibiting what we call species-typical behavior, but it also means that they see this is their home and it…
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