Colobus Trust

Category: Blogroll | Date: Feb 08 2008 | By: admin

Before we start with our update we would like to take a moment to thank, on behalf of the Trust, our supporters. Since we appealed to you last week we have received donations from several generous people. Thank you so much to those of you who donated. It looks now as if we are in safe waters for at least the next month!

The last week has been a very busy one, for all at the trust. We started the week with a crisis meeting. This was attended by all members of staff, our two remaining volunteers and two of our directors (see picture below). We discussed everyones thoughts and suggestions for the future of the trust. As well as evaluating our current programmes and how we can cut costs.

The descisions made in, and since, this meeting have been set in to action over the last week and we are all getting used to working on an even tighter budget. However, despite these changes, we have continued our hard work. We have continued our normal work such as the maintainance of our colobridges. As well as addressing the new situations that constantly arise in our line of work.

Some of you may remember a story about two dead Colobus we recieved in December. The two were reported to us as being found dead. This was rather strange as both Colobus looked in the best health. We suspected it as poisoning and took the available measures to find out what really happened. This week we finally received the results for the stomach toxin analysis undertaken by the Governement Chemist in Mombasa. As we suspected there was a positive result found. A component of numerous insecticides, called a Carbamate Group, was found in abundance in the stomach contents we sent them.

We are now looking into how this substance came to be included in the deit of an arboreal forager.

As well as this, work was ongoing with KPLC (the Kenya Power & Lighting Corportation) to reduce the numbers of Colobus lost through electrocutions. This relationship looks promising. KPLC are currently forming a plan of approach and we look forward to a progressive future with them.

Remember, without your help we cannot survive for more than a month with the money we have. Please, help us by keeping up the support, both financially and morally, and together we can secure a future for this special forest & its inhabitatants.

Thank you,

Gwili Gibbon