Posts by Elizabeth
Just the right piece
There is no shortage of snow on the ground in Cle Elum, so the chimpanzees don’t have to step far outside for a cold snack. They don’t have to, but with this sunny weather they’ve been venturing farther and farther onto Young’s Hill just to grab a handful of snow and bring it back inside…
Read MoreThat face!
We can’t get over how perfect Burrito’s face is.
Read MorePersonality
Foxie is about 60% sweet… and 40% sass:
Read MoreThe Complete Story
It’s often said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and this is often true. But pictures are only snapshots of a single instant, and they often fail to provide perspective or context. If you saw this photo of Jamie: you might conclude that she is a depressed chimpanzee who lives in a small…
Read MoreJamie the Merciful
We take a lot of photos and video around here, but Jamie isn’t always a fan of the camera. Sometimes she’ll be clear across the room, and as soon as she spots a caregiver with the camera she charges over and pounds on the caging to let us know to cut it out. If you’ve…
Read MoreContagion
Excitement spreads fast in a chimpanzee group. All it takes is for one chimp to get excited or upset, and the whole group is on fire before you know what happened. The chimps respond to each other’s vocalizations even when they’re not in the same room. If someone starts pant hooting in the playroom, you…
Read MoreEating Snow
When it’s so cold outside that the chimpanzees don’t want to venture out, we bring winter inside to them. Or the fun part of winter, at least.
Read MoreWhere are the chimpanzees?
By the time we’ve finished the morning cleaning, the chimpanzees have had their lunch, and we’re ready to start thinking about the day’s blog post, the chimps have usually settled down for afternoon naps, making photographing them a challenge. (Chimps like to sleep up high, and therefore out of sight of the camera lens.) This…
Read MoreLunch With the Chimps
The chimpanzees eat three meals a day, and at most mealtimes they’re asked to shift out of a certain area so we can close off that area to clean. (There’s nothing quite like food to motivate!) Lunch is an exception to this rule. Since we don’t do any cleaning at lunch, the chimps have free…
Read MoreNew Friends
The Cle Elum Seven chimpanzees don’t have a lot of guy friends. JB is the only male staff member and the majority of our chimp house volunteers are women. Since men are such a novelty around here, they’re usually given an enthusiastic welcome by the chimps. Volunteer Zane has recently progressed in his training from…
Read MoreLet Me Entertain You
I’m not sure how, but we discovered early on that Negra loves to watch people dance. The sillier and foot stompier the better. Today she bobbed her head along to volunteer caregiver Becca’s dancing.
Read MoreThe way to a chimpanzee’s heart…
If we asked the chimpanzees what their caregivers’ #1 priority should be, “giving us food” would be the unanimous response. We serve other purposes too – we keep their enclosures clean, we serve as play partners – but nothing’s more important than food. Because humans are always separated from the chimps by caging, we have…
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