Colobus Trust

Category: Primate Rescue/Rehabilitation | Date: Jan 19 2009 | By: colobus

17:15 Monday 12^th January 2009: Gwili’s land rover skids to a halt at the entrance to Colobus Cottage, he jumps out and shouts that he needs help. Gwili had just found an adult female Sykes monkey lying in the middle of the road on his way home. It lay there on the passenger seat, breathing shallowly and unable to move. This was clearly another road traffic accident (RTA); probably someone rushing home from work, ignoring the 50kph speed limit, hitting the monkey then driving off – a regular occurrence here in Diani.

We shifted her to the clinic and called the local vet to take a look. The vet treated her for shock, gave her a variety of booster injections and hooked her up to a drip. Though there were no visible external injuries or signs of fracture, the monkey was clearly in a bad way. There was little response in any limb, her eyes were open but stared blankly into space and her heartbeat was weak and erratic. We feared internal injuries and a possible blood clot in the brain. We made her as comfortable as possible and hoped for improvement in the morning.

We kept treating her and she hung on for 48hrs before finally passing away during the night of 14^th Jan. One tough little monkey. We buried her in the garden the next day. Tracey and I have been working at the Colobus trust for a mere two weeks. Already we have seen 2 baboons (1 RTA, 1 electrocution), 4 Colobus (3 electrocutions, 1 unknown) and 3 Sykes monkeys (RTAs) die in Diani. I’ll let you do the maths on annual statistics. It seems there’s a war going on here: Man vs. Monkey; Development vs. Conservation; Money vs. Environmental Care.

08:00 Thursday 15^th January 2009: On her way to work, Mary had seen a car hit another monkey and phoned the Colobus Trust for assistance. Again, it was a young female Sykes monkey which was lying unconscious in the road. We rushed to the scene but in the 5 minutes it took us to arrive, the monkey had regained consciousness and climbed up a tree. Her legs looked damaged and she couldn’t climb properly. Under close surveillance by the rest of her troop, who were very distressed and calling loudly, Peter climbed up the tree after the monkey and caught it. We brought her back to the centre and called a vet who treated her. She was kept under observation overnight.

Fortunately her condition improved immediately after treatment. Even another troop of Sykes (local to the Colobus Trust) heard her and broke into the quarantine cages to investigate! Perhaps they were planning a rescue operation. The next morning we drove back to find her original troop and successfully released her back into the wild. Clearly she had made a 100% recovery from the speed she shot out of the cage. I just hope that we don’t see her in the vet centre again.

These are just two typical stories that occur every week here at the Colobus Trust. Though not all animals make it, it is our duty to help every animal that comes in. All animals are treated with the available resources, even if the outlook doesn’t look good. Medication and vet bills cost a lot of money and any contribution will really help our cause.
The other way you can help is to become a volunteer: even if you only have a week or two to spare you would be helping with a number of on-going projects and making a real difference to the Trust.

Tim Jukes, Colobologist

Tags: Colobus Trust, death, diani, Monkey, release, RTA, sykes, volunteering