Posts by Debbie
Take Action Tuesday: Stop Casey from continuing to house chimps
Last week in Las Vegas, Clark County held a hearing about whether Mike Casey should be granted a permit to continue to house his exotic animals in an RV in his backyard. Casey is the person responsible for breeding and selling Travis, the chimpanzee who mauled Charla Nash in Connecticut in 2009. Chimpanzees, as we know,…
Read MoreFoxie mid-yawn
I guess yesterday’s Jamie-ween party was just so exhausting, Foxie couldn’t help but take a big yawn. Here she is holding the Dora doll donated by Bailey as mentioned in yesterday’s blog.
Read MoreTake Action Tuesday: Washoe and captive chimps
Today marks five years since Washoe, the first nonhuman to use a human language, passed away in Ellensburg (just 25 minutes from Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest where the Cle Elum Seven live). Like Negra, Annie, and possibly Jody, Washoe was captured from Africa. She was supposed to be used in the space program, but when that…
Read MoreNegra approaches her cabin
As J.B. mentioned in yesterday’s blog, Jackie and I caught Negra approaching her new cabin. Unfortunately I didn’t have our camera on me and didn’t want to miss the shot—so this was taken on my phone. I apologize that it is not the best quality and the chimps are pretty small. But, it is super…
Read MoreTake Action Tuesday: How orangutans are affected by the food and personal care products we buy
Last week we discussed issues that face free-living chimpanzees (and also the other two African apes, gorillas and bonobos). Today I want to take action on a hot topic: palm oil. Free-living orangutan populations are only found on the small islands of Borneo and Sumatra. Since that climate is also really great for palm plantations,…
Read More“Oh no!” Laundry basket keep away
Normally we don’t give the chimps laundry baskets, not because they are unsafe (because they aren’t) but because we need them to do all the laundry, to dry all the washed toys, and to have a spot for the day’s enrichment. So, we reserve them for human use only, and the chimps understand that. If…
Read MoreTake Action Tuesday: Chimpanzee populations in crisis
Up until recently, our advocacy efforts have focused on apes in entertainment and biomedical research. However as part of Eyes on Apes, we want to help advocate for the plight of free-living apes, too. (And we’ll be featuring some guest blogs from free-living researchers in the coming months, too!) I read an article the other…
Read MoreAdvocacy Program Logo Design Contest
CSNW’s advocacy program, Primate Patrol, mainly focuses on raising public awareness about issues that chimpanzees and other primates face in the entertainment industry. We are starting to broaden our efforts and provide tools for people to help apes in need for a wider range of issues. You may have seen our regular advocacy posts called…
Read MoreTake Action Tuesday: Sign our petition! Retire all 110 NIH chimps
As we discussed last week, the National Institute of Health (NIH) recently announced that they are “retiring” 110 chimps from the New Iberia Research Center (NIRC) in Louisiana. Ten of those chimpanzees are going to Chimp Haven, a sanctuary not far from NIRC. The other 100? They are going to Texas Biomedical Research Institute in…
Read MoreThe GoPro is tricky for some of us…
The GoPro camera is interesting for the chimps—we’ve captured them licking it, poking it, and just in general investigating this weird thing that is understandably confusing and interesting. Well, setting it up to record is apparently not the easiest thing for all of us. Every time we collect video from the camera, the first shots…
Read MoreYoung’s Hill Anniversary Forage
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…
Read MoreTake Action Tuesday: Help out chimps in entertainment
Though the nation’s top ad agencies as well as several companies have pledged to never use great apes in commercials because of public outcry, there are still chimpanzees being actively used in entertainment, forced to perform for a cheap laugh. Last November, a TV show on Nick Jr. called the Fresh Beat Band featured an…
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