Colobus Trust

Category: Human - Primate Conflict Resolution, Primate Rescue/Rehabilitation, Primate Rescue/Rehabilitation, deforestation, volunteer | Date: Jul 16 2009 | By: colobus

 Hello all, Andrew here and I am the new assistant manager here at the Colobus Trust. I’ve been working here for little over a month and it’s been an incredible experience so far. The team here has really made me feel welcome. I came from GVI working with Friends of Shimoni Forest and have now switched Wildlife direct pages to Colobus Trust. There has yet to be a dull day here at the trust and I am learning something new every second.  One experience has really changed my life. It was early Sunday morning and we already had two calls to pick up three dead Sykes monkeys…this was not going to be a good day.  We drove north up Diani beach road to the first call and arrived to find an adult female dead in the middle of the road with a male standing protectively over her.  After fending him off I managed to pick up the female, but while I was doing so one of the volunteers noticed another monkey lying on the grass just next to the road. This one was tiny and at first I thought it must also have been killed by the car that hit its mother. However, as I got closer I realized it was still breathing.  Knowing time was critical it took two of us to retrieve the baby, one to pick it up and the other to keep the male from attacking us as he tried to defend the infant. We rushed it back to the clinic and after checking him over we discovered that miraculously he had not sustained a single injury, despite the fact that he was probably being carried by his mother when she was hit.  He was, however, in acute shock and desperately needed to be rehydrated and warmed up.  We tried to give him baby formula with a syringe but he was too weak to drink and in the end we had to put him on a drip in order to get enough fluids into him.  Slowly but surely he began to improve, although for the first twenty four hours it was a bit touch and go.  As he grew stronger he became a lot more vocal and active, starting to climb bookcases and causing all the havoc you would expect a baby monkey to cause!   We think he is about two weeks old which means that he requires round the clock care. He needs to be fed every three hours (night and day) and someone to carry him round constantly to keep him warm and provide social interaction. It’s a full time job caring for Eric, named after Eric Sykes the British comedian, but we have become quite close. It’s going to be hard when the time comes for him to leave but I know it is the best thing for him. Until that time comes he will remain a member of the Colobus Trust family. He has become quite comfortable sleeping with me and will happily wake me up every morning by running around and playing with my face.  

Caring for these animals is one of the most important things we do here at the Trust. Animals like Eric who lose their mothers due to human disturbance when they are so young do not stand a chance in the wild without assistance. It’s going to be quite a job getting him to where he needs to be in order to be release back into the wild. I truly believe it is our responsibility to ensure that the destruction caused by our kind has as little impact on the wildlife as possible, both the individual and the species as a whole. It’s not an easy thing we do here and it would not be possible without the support of our volunteers and donors like you. I’ll be giving up-dates on how our new family member is doing from time to time so be sure to check back and watch him grow with us! Thanks again for all your support. Andrew Hayes.  

Tags: human-wildlife conflict, primate rescue, Primate Rescue/Rehabilitation