Colobus Trust

Category: Human - Primate Conflict Resolution | Date: Jan 19 2007 | By: admin

Today we went de-snaring in a small plot of forest near the Trust with some volunteers and a couple of staff members. De-Snaring basically involves walking around the forest trying to find small pieces of wire or string that poachers put out to catch Suni antelopes. Unfortunately, these snares will catch any wildlife that comes near it, including Colobus monkeys. Often times, the monkeys will break the snare from the tree holding it, but the snare will remain caught in their skin or fur. These snares become infected and can often end the lives of these primates. Poaching such as this is also illegal, so we go around once a week to collect up any snares we find and destroy them.

Today we found one of the largest snares ever found by the Trust. It was a piece of rusty barbed-wire, stretched from one tree to another, with small wire loop-snares all along the barbed-wire. It stretched for about 4 metres along the forest floor, and anything that walked by – including humans – would trip on it or get caught in the snares. As we were cutting the wires and wrapping things up we came across the decomposed skeleton and fur of a Colobus. It appears he got his foot caught in one of the snares and was unable to free himself. He most likely starved to death. It was a very sad thing to find, and further showed the need of the Trust to go out and remove these snares as soon as possible so something like this doesn’t happen again in the future! – Lindsay, Volunteer