Colobus Trust

Category: Fundraising | Date: Nov 30 2008 | By: colobus

The Colobus Trust will be holding its first fundraiser on foreign soil on Tuesday the 16th of December. The location is Sway Bar just off London’s famous Liverpool Street.

This event is a joint effort by the Colobus Trust and Kenyan ethical fashion house Lalesso, who have previously worked together on Kenyan based fundraisers. Lalesso have very kindly arranged for us to exhibit there fantastic new Spring/Summer ‘09 range with a great stage show. As well as this we will be have performances by the Flying Circus Band and a DJ set by the award winning Jarvus. Now, the Colobus Trust & Lalesso invite you, on behalf of all the monkeys, to a one of a kind charitable event in the build up to Christmas.

*** MONKEY AROUND LONDON - CHARITY PARTY & FASHION SHOW! ***

The event will last all evening and involve many acts and exhibits:

- The main event is the UK PREVIEW of the Kenyan ethical clothing label LALESSOS SPRING SUMMER 09 RANGE and a sale of some of their pieces.

- Musical fun will include a performance by the FLYING CIRCUS BAND & a DJ SET (Jarvus).

- Other attractions will include:
~ a photography exhibition
~ a sale and auction of Africana which will be reasonably priced and make great xmas presents (including traditional Masaii beadwork, traditional Swahili cloths {kikoys & khangas}, Kenyan made jewelry and more!)

*** TICKETS: £7.50 pre-registered (by e-mail) by 1st December, £10 on the door ***

Please come and join us as you will get the chance to help two very worthy causes!
*** All proceeds and profits will go to help support THE COLOBUS TRUST ***

The ethical fashion house Lalesso has been established for 3 years and despite being sold internationally, their proceeds go back into supporting traditional Kenyan culture. Their garments are made by local Kenyan tailors from authentic Kenyan khangas. Lalesso had initial success in South Africa and Kenya and are now targeting the United Kingdom with their launch in the flagship Topshop store on Oxford Street, London. After the show some of their pieces will be for sale, with all profit going to the Colobus Trust.The COLOBUS TRUST (as many of you will know) is a wildlife trust in Diani, Kenya. It was set up to preserve the wild animals of the local forest, in particular the endangered Colobus Monkey, the forest itself and the local people.

The money from this fundraising event will provide a much needed contribution to the Trust, which is still suffering from the 90% fall in tourism caused by the 2008 post election riots and over-dramatisation in the press. The Trust is still struggling financially and this fundraiser is aimed at providing funds to set all programs back on their feet.

Please invite ALL your friends/family/anyone to come and join in! We have a facebook event with already over 100 guests confirmed  and are also sending out physical invites.

If you would like to be sent some more information, just email gwili@colobustrust.org

or find more information about Lalesso, us and the event at…

Save The Colobus!!! Facebook Event

Colobus Trust Facebook Cause

Lalesso Website

Tags: colobus, fundraiser, lalesso, london, Monkey

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Category: Human - Primate Conflict Resolution, Primate Rescue/Rehabilitation | Date: Nov 28 2008 | By: colobus

By Fleur Downard, a volunteer at the Colobus Trust from 27 October – 14 November 2008

Part 3 – Hope for the future

Chuma is a wild animal, used to living either in his troop as the dominant alpha male or as a solitary male, in the forest foraging for leaves, flowers and unripe fruit for his daily meals.  His sad, dark eyes stare at you as you peer in at him in his cage.  I know and he knows he does not belong here.  I want him to survive and John (one of the Colobus trust staff members who will be looking after Chuma after I leave tomorrow) and I have adopted him.  However, I am aware that unless he regains his sense of balance and recovers to his previous health he will be unlikely to return to his previous life in the wild but will be dependent on the Colobus Trust for his food.  He has been seen by the local vets Dr Allan and Dr Oscar and also a visiting wildlife vet, Noni, who has arranged for an orthapediac vet to review his x-rays and they are all confident he can survive, although it is unlikely he could return to the wild.  The staff and volunteers at the Colobus Trust are doing everything possible to ensure his survival and I look forward to receiving weekly updates on his progress.

Even though it saddens me, I do understand that Chuma may not be happy living his life as a caged animal and unable to jump from branch to branch with careless abandon, so rather than looking at me with his sad caged eyes he may be better off in Colobus heaven where he can be wild and free.

Tags: , animal rescue, colobus, Monkey, road traffic accident

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Category: Human - Primate Conflict Resolution, Primate Rescue/Rehabilitation | Date: Nov 26 2008 | By: colobus

By Fleur Downard, a volunteer at the Colobus Trust from 27 October – 14 November 2008

Part 2 – Recovery and Rehabilitation

The Colobus monkey was very groggy when he woke up from his sedated sleep later in the afternoon.  He looked disorientated but was too weak to look for ways to escape from his cage in the vet clinic.  I felt sorry for him, he looked so sad and his eyes were pleading for a way out of this pain.  I decided to name him Chuma, the Swahili word for metal, to give him strength to overcome his injuries.  He is about 17 years old (which is old in monkey years), a male Angolan Colobus monkey, weighing about 9 kilograms, with black eyes and a cute, slightly lopsided smile due to his injuries.

Dr Allan advised that it would be best to have some x-rays taken of Chuma’s jaw and head so we can check the extent of his injuries.  Chuma was sedated again about a week and a half after the rescue and taken to the local hospital for an x-ray.  The radiologist took an x-ray of his head and his jaw, while Chuma was spreadeagled on the table, oblivious to the doctor, the vet and the Colobus staff fussing over him.  Dr Allan concluded that Chuma indeed had a fractured upper jaw with a possible fracture in the skull, hence we needed to ensure he does not chew so his jaw can heal.

Over the past two and a half weeks I have spent a lot of time with Chuma, talking to him to try to comfort him (in English which of course does not understand) and making a lip-smacking noise, which is how the Colobus monkeys communicate with each other.  He loves eating bouganvillea flowers which we have been hanging in his cage or cooking the flowers with water so it is easier for him to eat with his fractured jaw.  We have also started giving him mashed banana, papaya and watermelon to help give him more strength and nutrition.  Chuma lives in a small cage as he falls over easily and does not have a good sense of balance so we cannot transfer him to a larger cage where he might fall down and injure himself.  We try to make the cage as homely as possible, filling it with leaves and branches to mimic the forest environment he is used to living in.

Tags: , animal rescue, colobus, Monkey, road traffic accident

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Category: Human - Primate Conflict Resolution, Primate Rescue/Rehabilitation | Date: Nov 22 2008 | By: colobus

By Fleur Downard, a volunteer at the Colobus Trust from 27 October – 14 November 2008

Part 1 – The Rescue

At about 9am on Tuesday 28^th October, Gwili Gibbon, the assistant manager at the Colobus Trust at Diani beach, Kenya, received a call from a distressed Luciana, one of the trustees of the Colobus Trust.  Luciana had found a male Colobus monkey that had been hit by a matatu (a minivan used for public transport in Kenya) on Diani Beach Road, near the Safari Beach Lodge.  While Luciana was waiting for Gwili to arrive to rescue the Colobus, she stood on the road to protect the injured monkey and also waved her arms and shouted at passing vehicles, urging them to drive at 50 kmph to help avoid this kind of accident occurring again.  The Colobus Trust has built 23 colobridges in Diani, so that the monkeys can safely cross the road by using these bridges.

When Gwili and Peter arrived on Diani Beach Road the Colobus was in shock and difficult to restrain, being an older male monkey weighing about 9 kilograms, so they sedated him and put him in a cage before taking him back to the Colobus Trust.  He had been hit on the right side of his head by the matatu and was bleeding heavily from his right ear.  Doctor Allan, the local veterinarian arrived within minutes of Gwili arriving at the Colobus Trust vet clinic with the Colobus.  He inspected the Colobus’s bleeding ear and felt around the right hand side jaw area.  He felt a broken bone in the upper jaw area and concluded that the Colobus probably had a fractured jaw with possible injuries to the skull.  He prescribed some painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs for the Colobus.

Tags: , animal rescue, colobus, Monkey, road traffic accident

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Category: Fundraising | Date: Nov 21 2008 | By: colobus

The Colobus Trust urgently needs to raise funds to buy new tyres for it’s workhorse, the Colobus Truck.

Our lovely white Ford Ranger was kindly donated to us by the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) and is perhaps the most essential tool we have. WPSA also kindly donate funds for the vehicle insurance, but not for new tyres.

It is used several times a day for an array of jobs including shopping for monkey food, the deployment of our field teams, for the transport of materials to fix our colobridges and most importantly for the rapid response to animal rescue calls. It really is essential to us, in every way. Below is a photo of a recent Sykes Monkey we released from the back of the truck.

Sadly during our financial crisis we have been focus on raising funds to keep our core projects running and now we are faced by the very real threat that our vehicle may be out of order. Yesterday we had the third puncture this month and the state of our tyres is appauling (see below).

We urgently need new tires to keep on doing all the good work we do. Without them the vehicle we will be crippled. To replace the tyres with those of the same type will cost a whopping KSh 21,000 per tyre (USD 267). Even the cheapest on the market will cost a total of KSh 49,000 (USD 623) for all 4 wheels, but with the off road driving required to reach some of our desnaring sites, we fear these will not be good enough.

Please donate generously and quickly! We are asking local garages to donate old tyres as a tempory measure but they will not last long.

Warm regards and thanks,

Gwili

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Category: Habitat Restoration/Conservation, Research | Date: Nov 21 2008 | By: colobus

Mount Kasigau is a remote peak of the Eastern Arc Mountains bordering the southernmost reaches of Tsavo West National Park. Located a third of the way between the Taita Hills and the Indian Ocean it rises majestically 3,000 feet above the Taru Desert, a refuge from the deserts dry heat. Although clearly visible from the Nairobi-Mombasa highway.Mt Kasigau has seen limited scientific study and still holds a great deal of mystery about its ecological makeup. This is due to the limitations imposed by its remote location and inaccessibility; due to its thick, forested slopes and shear rock faces.500×146When the Colobus Trust heard that a black and white monkey had been spotted on the mountain interest was stirred, notably mine! The population of C. angolensis palliatus is known to stretch inland into the southern highlands of Tanzania, but according to literature held at our site the remaining Kenyan population is confined to what is left of the coastal forests of the Kwale District, with the most inland population being in the Shimba Hills NR, a mere 30 km from the coast.Therefore the identification of a surviving inland Kenyan population of our focal species would be of great significance, not just for ensuring the protection of the forest but also for the scientific study of the causes and effects of isolation.Last month we were kindly invited to stay at Rukinga Wildlife Sanctuary, otherwise known as Camp Tsavo (visit http://www.campsinternational.com for more information), an 80,000 acre area of land in the Tsavo Migration Corridor. We set out with the specific intent on shedding more light on the situation. At their wonderful camp we got talking to Ken, who has worked and lived in and around Kasigau for many years. We also got talking to Rob Dodson, who set up Rukinga and who led IUCN Primate Group Director Tom Putchinski around the mountain to answer the same question as us after spotting what he believed to be Colobus monkeys traversing a rock face. We learnt of several other sightings. In the end there was nothing conclusive and the general consensus was that there was no population present. However, we were still keen to investigate further as there were still unanswered questions.The next day we headed for the mountain. Led by Ken, we climbed up the slopes past Blue Gum Trees and Wild Bananas to the home of an old farmer who’s farm has one of the most spectacular views I’ve ever seen. He made his living farming maize, oranges and other crops high on the slopes of the mountain with thick forest bordering the fields. With a lifetime spent on the mountain we decided he would be a good person to ask if he’d ever seen a Colobus and we’d brought along my Kingdon Field Guide to Mammals to help.375×496Conversing in a mixture of Taita and Swahili I was only able to pick up a few words. So Ken helped by translating for me. The farmer said that there were three kinds of monkey he has seen on the mountain. Kima (Sykes Monkey), Tumbili (Vervet Monkey) and one he had no name for. We confirmed this by showing him drawings of the monkeys in the field guide.500×375Then we asked him about the unnamed species. He said they lived in groups up to 50 (Colobus troops in Diani usual have from 4-12 members), were black and white and visited his farm regularly. We showed him the field guide and as a test asked him to distinguish whether they were the Angolan Colobus (below left) or Guereza Colobus (below right) as a test. The Guereza are found in mountainous regions in East Africa, such as Mounts Kilimanjaro, Kenya & Meru, as well as in numerous parts of the Rift Valley.500×189He was certain that it was the Angolan Colobus he saw. He even pointed out that they have shorter epaulets (white hair on the shoulder). This is one of the distinguishing features of our sub-species (C. angolensis palliatus). This was very exciting! We asked when he last saw them. He said they passed through about half an hour ago! We tried to track the monkeys for about an hour, but to no avail. This was a shame but more interesting information was to come on the way back. The farmer was convinced that the monkeys we were looking for occasionally raided his crops. This was strange to hear, as Colobus are not known to be crop raiders at the coast. More excitement was to come when we were nearing his house. We found skulls of what appear to be two large male Colobus! These were taken back to our office where they await a proper scientific analysis.499×334The questions posed by this discovery on return to the Colobus Trust caused quite a stir. As I said, the possibility of locating this isolated, inland population not only will help promote the protection of one of the remaining forests in the area, but will also open up many scientific questions about the effects of isolation.  One example is how they got there? When discussing it with Danny Woodley, KWS Senior Warden of Tsavo West NP, he mentioned that many animals (including several Sable Antelope) were displaced from the coast by the effects of the 1997-98 El Nino. Could they have been driven there in response to the change in rainfall patterns, or have they been there since the lowland forest receded 3,000-5,000 years ago? If they have been isolated for such a long period then there could be every chance that their behaviour could be so altered that they live in troops of such a large number (other subspecies of C. angolensis have troops this size) and could the gradual decrease in the size of their habitat have driven them to feed on different food sources? It would explain why the farmer was so certain they raided his crops?   More excitement came when Camps International were told by one of their students that a picture of a Colobus had been taken on Kasigau. Sadly though, when the photo was examined it was nothing but a rather large, fluffy male Sykes Monkey! We are currently looking for funding to send a team up the mountain for a 3-night, 5-day expedition. During this time we will undertake a sweep census of all primates (and hopefully other wildlife) and a thorough analysis of the known Colobus food species of Diani’s population. If Colobus are deemed present, then we have our work set out for us!Watch this space!Gwili

Tags: Angolan Colobus, colobus, Habitat Restoration/Conservation, Kasigau, Monkey

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