Debbie – Page 8 – Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Protecting Mountain Gorillas through Community Involvement

By Debbie | May 13, 2014 |

This is our first guest blog post about gorilla conservation, written by Gretchen Clymer. Gretchen first became passionate about primate conservation after reading Gorillas in the Mist by Dian Fossey as a teenager. She went on to complete undergraduate and graduate studies in Biological Anthropology, conducting behavioral research on different primate species, including golden lion tamarins, rhesus…

Interrupted play

By Debbie | May 6, 2014 |

Today Burrito and Foxie were wrestling and chasing and just being super playful in the greenhouse. Their laughter got to be pretty loud, and I think it caught Jamie’s attention… …She came out to see what was going on, and stepped right between Burrito and Foxie to interrupt their play. This is a very boss-like…

Play initiation and Hoot!

By Debbie | May 3, 2014

Tonight is our very first Hoot! gala event and I’m so excited to see everyone. I hope you all are ready to Give a Hoot! tonight! And don’t worry, for those of you that aren’t able to make it to the gala, we are going to have an online auction later this summer so everyone…

Lots and lots of paper

By Debbie | May 2, 2014 |

We’ve posted about the enrichment theme “lots of paper” before, but it never gets old with the chimps. They love it, so we try to work that theme into each month—so long as we have extra paper to spare. Yesterday we had plenty, including a bunch of paper from some boxes that were shipped from…

Easter continued

By Debbie | April 29, 2014 |

We take so many photos that sometimes it’s hard to decide which ones to post on the blog, and so we have a collection of several that haven’t been posted before. I found a few from the big Easter party last weekend that haven’t been shared yet. Take a look at the previous post to…

High value item

By Debbie | April 26, 2014 |

Last night we put kong toys out with a couple of almonds in each, and this morning I found one that the chimps had missed hidden inside a tire! So I put it in the food chute in the front rooms when no one was around, thinking someone would find a nice treat later. I…

Happy Earth Day!

By Debbie | April 22, 2014 |

One thing is for sure—the chimpanzees definitely don’t take their environment for granted. Here are some pictures that demonstrate how Missy is enjoying the spring weather these days!

Whole apple forage

By Debbie | April 18, 2014 |

Jamie really cleaned up in today’s breakfast forage. We put out whole apples and she was absolutely beside herself—carrying them around in hand and in foot. Thankfully the other chimps were able to get some as well—I posted photos of Annie, Burrito, and Missy on their Facebook pages. I saw Foxie and Jody with some…

How Apps for Apes helps conservation

By Debbie | April 15, 2014

In his first post, Rich Zimmerman introduced us to the plight of free-living orangutans in Indonesia. Here he tells us how his program, Orangutan Outreach, has helped with some of the issues orangutans face and how Apps for Apes helps raise awareness for those efforts. — How has your work with Orangutan Outreach influenced conservation…

New boots

By Debbie | April 12, 2014

Laura Herzog, who donated this oil painting for the upcoming Hoot! auction, also sent some boots over to Jamie. I got some pictures of her looking pretty content in a nest this morning with her new boots.

Eyes on Apes website

By Debbie | April 8, 2014 |

One of our missions at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest is to advocate for apes everywhere, which is why we developed the program Eyes on Apes. The idea is to have one centralized area for people to learn about issues that apes face both in captivity and in the wild, while providing tools for you to take…