Colobus Trust

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