Colobus Trust

Category: Animal Electrocutions, Human - Primate Conflict Resolution, Primate Rescue/Rehabilitation | Date: Aug 28 2009 | By: colobus

The Colobus Trust runs a 24 hour hotline which enables local residents and businesses to report any injured, sick or dead monkeys in the area. To the best of their ability the Colobus team then resolves every situation, which may include a Vervet monkey injured at a hotel, a Sykes’ monkey caught in a snare or even a Colobus monkey killed in a road traffic accident.

In this instance, a hotel made a call to let us know that three Colobus monkeys had been electrocuted on the perimeter of their plot. Upon arrival, only two of the three Colobus were still in the area. Unfortunately, one of them was already dead- a large adult male with burns to his hands and feet. Our main concern was now treating the other injured Colobus, an adult female. Catching her was relatively easy compared to other captures due to the injuries on her back legs preventing her from climbing a tree.

Michaela, Andrew and Jody with the Colobus ready to get back to the clinic

Once back at the trust, Andrew, Cara, Jody and Michaela sedated and then examined the Colobus, during which time we discovered that she was heavily pregnant- all the more reason to ensure her successful release back into the wild.

Above: The injury to the Colobus

Below: Treatment being given at the Colobus Trust clinic

Her external wounds (burns to her feet and rump) were treated and multivitamin and tetanus injections were administered. She was then placed in quarantine under observation until she came round from sedation. Later in the day when she was fully alert and able to move adequately, we released her near to the location where she was found.

The Colobus being released by Andrew and Cara

The Colobus trust is working with the Kenya Power and Lighting Company to insulate as many electricity lines as we can fund in order to reduce and even eradicate cases such as these. The public can help us with this by making any donation, large or small, which we would greatly appreciate.

Luckily for this Colobus, and her unborn baby, her encounter with the electricity lines was not fatal- unlike her fellow troop member who lost his life.

Please help now,

The Colobus Team

Tags: Animal Electrocutions, Habitat conservation, human-wildlife conflict, primate rescue, Primate Rescue/Rehabilitation

One response so far

Category: Habitat Restoration/Conservation, Primate Rescue/Rehabilitation, deforestation, volunteer | Date: Aug 18 2009 | By: colobus

 Capture

Peter, Sarah, Sam and Tom went to the location where the report of an injured Vervet monkey was reported. After looking around the grounds it seemed that a capture would be unsuccessful today. Either way, the gentleman who reported the incident offered them drinks for their troubles…… Then what do you know? The monkey arrives! The capture was a relatively easy one which involved luring the monkey into the cage with fruit! Once it was trapped, it was sedated and brought into the clinic.

Treatment

Claire, Peter and Jody assessed the monkey on arrival. On examination, there were wounds visible on both arms and a major wound on the back of the right hand. All wounds were cleaned thoroughly by the team and Jody sutured the hand wound with dissolvable stitches. Claire gave antibiotic, anti-inflammatory and Tetanus injections intramuscularly. Iodine was applied to all wounds and the monkey was placed back in the cage to come round fully under observation. Once the monkey was awake water and food were then offered.

After Care

Following the procedure, antibiotic injections were given for another day and the monkey’s progress was monitored.

Release

24 hours after the procedure, the monkey was taken back the location where it was captured. Here, he was released successfully and roamed his natural environment back where he belongs!

All in all, it was a positive outcome for the monkey and team!

www.colobustrust.org

Tags: primate rescue, Primate Rescue/Rehabilitation, Veterinary clinic, volunteer

2 responses so far

Category: Fundraising, Habitat Restoration/Conservation, Marketing, Newsletter, deforestation, sustainable, volunteer | Date: Aug 10 2009 | By: colobus

The following article is the press release from Safarilink the new corporate sponsor of Colobus Trust. We at the trust would like to thank Safarilink for all there support and look forward to an amazing relationship. It is always inspiring when a company of this magnitude cares enough about the local environment and organizations dedicated to protecting it.

SafariLink Helps Protect Diani’s Primates

Nairobi, Kenya xx August 2009 - As part of its ongoing corporate social responsibility programme, SafariLink, Kenya’s premier safari airline, has announced that it will donate $2 to the Diani Beach based Colobus Trust for each passenger it flies into or out of the Diani airstrip.  In addition it has sponsored the purchase of a ‘tuk-tuk’ which will be used by the Trust to collect tourists from their hotels and take them to their headquarters where they will be able to learn about the Coast ecosystem and the work of the Trust. The airline, which commenced daily flights to Diani on the 1st July 2009, has taken the decision to assist the Trust which runs the primate conservation and rescue centre on the south coast of Kenya.

The Colobus Trust was founded in Diani in 1997, initially to come up with a way to prevent the high number of monkey ‘road kills’ on Diani Road.  Today, the Trust has expanded to become a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation centre, focusing on primates, with both Kenyan staff and international volunteers. The Colobus Trust also helps to educate local schoolchildren, gives guided eco-tours and provides a rehabilitation programme for monkeys that have been kept illegally as pets.

“The rapid growth in tourism infrastructure and growing human population in the area has had a significant negative impact on the remnants of a once large and rich coastal forest ecosystem and hence a decline in the primate population,’ said John Buckley, Managing Director, SafariLink Aviation.  “For more than ten years the Colobus Trust has been dedicated to the conservation and welfare of primates living in the Diani area.  SafariLink, as a socially responsible company, is therefore happy to help the Trust in order to help safeguard the environment for the remaining primates and hopefully thereby stop the decline in their numbers.”

In support of the donation, Raymond Matiba, Chairman of The Colobus Trust said, “75% of the Trusts core revenue comes from tourism.  But sadly the Kenya Coast has suffered a  decline in tourists in recent years and hence our income from visitors to the Trust has decreased.  We are therefore particularly delighted that SafariLink have made this very generous donation to the Trust and their pledge of long term financial support will help us plan for the future.”

“In addition, the introduction of the SafariLink daily flights to Diani is in itself a very positive move which we believe will result in an increase in tourists as well as being beneficial to the residents in the area,” added Matiba.

SafariLink is involved in other socially responsible initiatives that include an indigenous tree planting exercise on the foothills of Mount Kenya National Reserve in conjunction with the Bill Woodley Mount Kenya Trust.  This project aims to compensate for the carbon-dioxide emissions from their aircraft and hence minimize the company’s operational impact on the environment.  Additionally the company has an agreement with the Lewa Conservancy, www.lewa.org, whereby approximately 5% of the cost of each ticket to Lewa is donated to help their conservation research.  In addition, SafariLink assist the Safi Lamu group who are tidying up Lamu and provide flights for the charity Medical & Educational Aid to Kenya, www.meak.org, to help them reach disadvantaged persons in remote areas who need medical attention for heart and eye conditions.

-ENDS-

About SafariLink

SafariLink is a Kenyan company established in 2004.  Based in the ALS Building, Wilson Airport, SafariLink offers a network of scheduled services that cover the main ‘safari’ tourist destinations of Amboseli, Tsavo, Chyulus, Naivasha, Nanyuki, Lewa Downs, Samburu, Loisaba, Shaba, Masai Mara, Kiwayu and Lamu in Kenya and Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.  In addition, SafariLink can provide you with charter flight within Kenya and throughout East Africa.  SafariLink currently operates a fleet of Cessna Caravans, a Let 410 and Dash 8.

About The Colobus Trust

The Colobus Trust is a conservation organization designed to promote the conservation, preservation and protection of primates like the rare Angolan Colobus monkey (Colobus angolensis palliatus) and its coastal forest habitat in southern Kenya. The Trust was established in 1997 in response to an outcry from local residents about the high number of deaths of the Colobus in the Diani area. Now the Trust has numerous projects concerning the wildlife and the citizens of Kenya, including animal welfare, biological/ecological research, community development and education, forest protection and enrichment and eco-tourism awareness programs.

Tags: deforestation, Fundraising, habitat restoration, Marketing, Safarilink, sustainable, volunteer

One response so far

Category: Habitat Restoration/Conservation, Human - Primate Conflict Resolution, Primate Rescue/Rehabilitation, Research, deforestation | Date: Aug 06 2009 | By: colobus

 Recently Colobus trust wrote about finding a new hybrid species. This was believed to be a mix of vervet and sykes monkeys. The picture we posted belonged to Yvonne A. de Jong & Thomas M. Butynski, since then the Colobus Trust team has been out on a number of occasions trying to learn more about these creatures. 

When I first heard about these animals, to be honest, I didn’t believe it. Normally sykes and vervets don’t like to interact very much.  Opposed to Colobus who do not eat the same foods, these animals do have a lot of competition for food. It is not unusual that they would live in the same area. But for them to be in such close proximity to one another that mating begins to take place is a sign of something. I believe this has something to do with the loss of natural habitat in Diani putting these animals in much closer proximity.  Until I saw these new pictures I believe you could have made the argument that this was just a funny looking skyes monkey. What is very interesting to us is that the testicles of this animal are blue. This is a very specific trait of the veret monkey and not sykes. With this evidence there is no doubt in my mind now what we are looking at. This is indeed a hybrid and we are very excited to share these photos with you today.

We have been spending much more time with these animals in the last few weeks trying to gather as much information as possible. We have confirmed two individuals but know that there are at least 5. The one we followed on this day was hanging out with a group of sykes. Although he was positioned on the outside of the group, he seemed to display some of the dominant traits. The other monkeys stayed out his way and on a few occasions he approached our team a bit aggressively.  It is a common belief that when these two animals of different species mate the offspring will be unfertile. The question then arises why are there so many and have they formed a troop of their own? These are things we here at the trust are looking into. We look forward to collaborating with other researchers such as Yvonne A. de Jong & Thomas M. Butynski on this subject. The Colobus Trust will keep you updated on what we find as well as any information about where other incidences such as this may have happened before.

Andrew Hayes

www.colobustrust.org

One response so far

Category: Education, Fundraising, Habitat Restoration/Conservation, Human - Primate Conflict Resolution, deforestation, sustainable, volunteer | Date: Aug 03 2009 | By: colobus

Recently the Colobus Trust has been making big moves to raise awarness in diani and all across Kenya. One big supporter of our cause has been the Daily Nation news papper. In the past few weeks two seperate articles have been written on the plight of the Angolan black and white colobus, our flagship speices, whos only remaining habbitat in kenya is here on the south coast. We would like to share these articles with our readers and thank the Daily Nation for its support. Media is one of the best ways for conservation groups to raise awarness. This is one of the largest news pappers in Kenya and is read by thousands of people a day.

http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/633412/-/item/0/-/18yang/-/index.html

http://www.nation.co.ke/News/regional/-/1070/630462/-/7l0l1v/-/index.html

 We would also like to thank the Great Primate Handshake. This group was with us a few weeks ago and worked on some very important videos for us here at the Trust. The first video is going to help us with our volunteer programs. We at the Colobus Trust would like to build our volunteer program to allow us to complete many of the projects which require more man power. If you know anyone who is interested in doing some volunteer work or who may have some vacation time and would like a different experience please let them know about us. I can personally guarantee a wonderful stay and an experience you can never forget.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYgtC5597b8&feature=SeriesPlayList&p=094AF86F0F47431C

This next video was made for the Kenya ferry service. This Ferry shuttles some 50,000-70,000 people back and forth from Likoni to Mombasa every day. At the waiting station for the ferry are two large screens, one on either end. We have arranged for the ferry service to play our video for free. This is going to raise a lot of awareness about the major issues here in Diani as well as provide information to tourist on what it is we do here at the trust.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98fwLExkgEs&feature=SeriesPlayList&p=094AF86F0F47431C&index=2

 Once again I would like to thank you for joining us. As always small organizations with large responsibilities, such as the Colobus Trust, would not be able to exist without the support from doners such as yourselves. Please continue to support us and we will keep you updated on all of our projects.

Best wishes,

Andrew Hayes

Assistant manager

www.colobustrust.org

Tags: Education, Kenya Ferry services, News paper, primate handshake, volunteer, you tube

2 responses so far