Colobus Trust

Category: Education, Marketing, Primate Rescue/Rehabilitation, volunteer | Date: Sep 30 2009 | By: colobus

Hi, it’s Eva- a Wildlife Clubs of Kenya student on attachment in Colobus Trust. This my second week in Colobus Trust and I am really excited by the marvelous activities carried out. Some of the activities I have participated in are tree trimming and also last Wednesday we rescued a monkey. I am also assisting in marketing department whereby we advertise in hotels within Diani, then we bring tourists for an eco-tour.

I am really enjoying my stay in Colobus Trust. All can come participate in this primate conservation centre for a better tomorrow.

Eva

Marketing Volunteer

Tags: Colobus Trust, Eco-tourism, Marketing, volunteering, Wildlife Clubs of Kenya

No responses yet

Category: Fundraising, Habitat Restoration/Conservation, Marketing, community | Date: Sep 26 2009 | By: colobus

A successful and entertaining evening was held on Saturday 19^th September at Ngiri’s Bar and Restaurant in Diani Beach. The fundraiser was thrown for the South Coast Resident’s Association’s tree planting drive in collaboration with the Colobus Trust. The brilliant band played a top range of music and the atmosphere could not have been better! The “Pig in the Wig” theme lead to a huge array of inventive outfits, with some wigs being made from everyday items such as mops, bin liners, foliage, cotton wool and even toilet paper!

The evening’s entrance fees were donated to the SCRA cause, raising total of 18200Ksh. Additional money was raised by Ngiri’s donating 10% of the money spent on food, as well as one gentleman who managed to raise some funds by selling clothes pegs!

A big thank you to all who came along to show their support for such a deserving cause. We hope to see such a marvelous turnout for the next event!

Tags: Colobus Trust, conservation party, fancy dress, Fundraising, South coast resident's association, tree-planting

No responses yet

Category: Education, Primate Rescue/Rehabilitation, Progress report, volunteer | Date: Sep 24 2009 | By: colobus

Erica, our orphaned monkey here at the Colobus Trust, has been spending the vast majority of her two months here in the company of humans. Now that she is getting bigger and more independent it is important that she spends less time with humans and more time with monkeys.

As part of the process or her being released into the wild, Erica has been spending more time in the rehabilitation cages with our older rescued Sykes monkey, SF1. They get on very well and so far have been happy to spend a few hours or more in each other’s presence. They play, jumping around on the ropes and branches that are there as part of their enrichment, as well as learning how to groom.

Above: Erica and SF1 eating in the cage

Our eco-volunteer Becky has been working on Erica’s tree-climbing skills and ensuring that the orphan has confidence in her abilities so that she climbs higher and more independently. Becky is also finding ways of introducing Erica to the food that she would eat in the wild, such as neem fruits.

We will build up the time that Erica spends in the cage and in the trees over the next month or so, in order that she relies less on human contact. The whole process of her release is likely to take up to a year, after which she will hopefully be fully wild.

Keep checking the blog for more updates on Erica and SF1!

The Colobus Team

Tags: animal rescue, Colobus Trust, learning, Monkey Rehabilitation, progress, sykes, volunteer

One response so far

Category: Education, Habitat Restoration/Conservation, Human - Primate Conflict Resolution, deforestation, volunteer | Date: Sep 19 2009 | By: colobus

Our peaceful Saturday morning was interrupted by a call on our hotline. Diani Sea Resort was calling to report a dead juvenile Colobus monkey. We knew this wouldn’t be an easy call out, but nothing could quite prepare us for what was waiting at the scene. The juvenile was in fact a very young infant, its death a result of fighting between two troops on the premises. Our animal welfare officer John estimated the infant was around one week old, as its fur was still completely white and the remains of its umbilical cord were still present. The Colobus only carry a single offspring at a time (although a set of twins can occur on very rare occasions) and take four to six years to reach sexual maturity. Therefore to lose an infant after a six month gestation period is a big blow to any Colobus troop, but more so in Diani where the population is dangerously low.

We were told by staff at the resort that intense fighting had occurred the previous day, with visible injuries to some of the adults. It is unclear at what stage and how the infant was killed, but it is likely that the mother continued to carry the infant after its death.

Increasingly fragmented habitats result in increased levels of stress in the species which live in them. Territorial disputes between rival Colobus troops are a natural occurrence; however the forest loss in Diani gives rise to a greater number of conflicts between the troops over the territory that remains.

To try and counter this, the Colobus Trust is working to create forest corridors for the Colobus and other native species to have better mobility between forest fragments.

More on this in another post!

Rob and Cara

Tags: Colobus monkey, Colobus Trust, conflict, diani, forest, Habitat Restoration/Conservation, Kenya, Monkey, reforestation, trees

No responses yet

Category: Education, Habitat Restoration/Conservation, community, sustainable | Date: Sep 15 2009 | By: colobus

Staff and volunteers spent a morning in Mwakambe, a small local village, helping out with a community project. The Mwakambe Youth Group consists of 20 members and has two main aims: turning two sections of wasteland that have been abandoned for 20 years into an agro-business and a forest of native trees. Both projects will provide an income for the members of the youth group and their families.

Below: Rob (front right) working with the youth group

A local NGO has agreed to donate fertilizer, seeds and saplings to cultivate plants such as bananas, mangos and vegetables. They have set a deadline for the youth group of 20^th September to clear the land, so when we arrived they were all busy working in order to achieve this. We helped by slashing the long grass (which before they started work covered the majority of the plot) and cutting down small shrubs. The land, once cleared of denser vegetation, is then tilled using jembes. All this in the boiling hot sun means it’s very hard work and resulted in many blisters!

Below: We couldn’t resist documenting our injuries!

We made a visit to the second site where many saplings have already been planted. We helped by bringing water and watering them. The forest, when mature, will provide an ideal local location for ecotourism.

Below: Becky checks the progress of an indigenous sapling

We later joined the local group for some shade under a tree while the chairman explained more about the project and how we can help them. Peter then gave a motivational speech to the group members, as projects such as these can take a long time to come to fruition and can be frustrating for those involved.

The Colobus Trust looks forward to continuing to work alongside the Mwakambe community on this project to help them achieve their goals.

Tags: community, habitat restoration, teamwork

No responses yet

Category: Fundraising | Date: Sep 13 2009 | By: colobus

The Colobus Trust was very grateful to receive a donation this week from the Leisure Golf Club. The Senior Golfers Society had a shoot-out competition where competitors aimed to get a golf ball closest to a flag. All the balls used in the shoot-out were purchased by the golfers on the day and all proceeds were then split between the Colobus Trust and the Diani Children’s Home.

We would like to thank the Leisure Golf Club and the Senior Golfers Society for this wonderful initiative.

Tags: community support, Fundraising, golf

No responses yet

Category: Human - Primate Conflict Resolution, Primate Rescue/Rehabilitation, Progress report, volunteer | Date: Sep 11 2009 | By: colobus

We welcomed a new addition to the Colobus Trust yesterday- a Sykes monkey who had been kept as a pet. When she was an infant, her mother was killed in a traffic accident and the driver took pity on her and raised her himself. She is probably one and a half or two years old now and her owner decided that she was becoming too difficult for them to handle, so she was handed over to the National Museums of Kenya, who in turn contacted us.

Her story is like that of many other pet primates who become unmanageable as they become older. While when very young primates are very cute and relatively easy to deal with, as they grow and mature they become more difficult to control. As they reach sexual maturity they will try and establish for themselves a position in the group in which they live. They do this as they would in the wild by threat displays and attacks. This can result in severe injuries to their owners. Primates can also carry diseases which can be lethal to humans.

Above: The new addition is settling in well

Most primates are highly social, and when deprived of sufficient interaction become bored, and because of their strength and intelligence they can do a large amount of damage to any area they are left in. The lack of interaction with other individuals can also cause psychological problems which can result in the animal indulging in self harming and other detrimental behaviors.

The aim of the rehabilitation unit at the Colobus Trust, which is the only primate rehabilitation unit in Kenya, is to ultimately return any animals back to the wild. To help achieve this interaction with people is limited as much as possible, with the hope that the animals will ultimately no longer associate people with providing for them.

The Sykes was given some vaccinations before being released into her new cage, where she appears to have settled in well. We hope that her stay here with us will be as short as possible and that we will be able to get her back out in to the wild as soon as we can. We will update you on her progress!

The Colobus Team

Tags: Monkey centre, rehabilitation, sykes, wild release

No responses yet

Category: Education, Habitat Restoration/Conservation, deforestation, sustainable, volunteer | Date: Sep 08 2009 | By: colobus

Hi there, I am one of the new volunteers at the trust and my first week has certainly been busy. Spending only a week here has shown me just how diverse and important the work of The Colobus Trust is.

So far I have been involved in a variety of the many projects that the trust carries out to ensure that the endangered Colobus monkeys have a future. These projects have ranged from climbing trees to mend the damaged Colobridges or being called out to search for an injured colobus or walking through the ever depleting forest to search for native saplings to add to the unique Colobus Corridor – this will hopefully develop corridors of forest in between the forest patches so Colobus have areas to move safely in.

Polly watering the saplings collected

As I am a qualified teacher, I have also become interested in the environmental education work that the Colobus Trust carries out and with the help of Hamisi I hope to begin a new programme after the long school holidays. I will keep you updated on this!

In just a week I have realised the hard work that the Colobus Trust has ahead of it but I do believe with continued hard work from the staff and support from volunteers it is possible.

Polly

Volunteer

Tags: Education, reforestation, Volunteer update

One response so far

Category: Primate Rescue/Rehabilitation, Progress report, volunteer | Date: Sep 05 2009 | By: colobus

The orphaned baby Sykes monkey that Andrew reported on back in July is doing very well. After finding out she is in fact a girl, not a boy, the monkey has been renamed Erica instead of Eric!

After her initial struggle to survive, Erica has been going from strength to strength. In her first few weeks at the Colobus Trust, Erica was only drinking formula milk. However, in the last month we have added non-acidic fruits and vegetables to her diet. Her favourites are definitely mango and cucumber! What’s more, Erica has been venturing out into the trees at the Trust, exploring what she likes to eat in the wild. She was timid at first when it came to venturing on to the branches, but with a little tree-climbing on our part, she was soon clambering through the vegetation. The volunteers at the trust all enjoy being surrogate mothers to Erica, and take it in turns to have her sleep with them in order that she doesn’t become too attached to one person. In spite of this, our volunteer Michaela always gets preferential treatment from Erica!

Erica gets acquainted with the trees

Whether she is leaping around playing, suckling on an earlobe or lip, giving warning calls when there are baboons in the garden or even when she wants someone to groom her, Erica ensures that life here is always entertaining!

Watch out for an update on Erica’s next steps…..

Tags: primate rescue, progress, sykes, volunteer

One response so far

Category: Education, Habitat Restoration/Conservation, deforestation, good wood, volunteer | Date: Sep 02 2009 | By: colobus

It began as a mere suggestion to create a nature trail involving eco-friendly hotels, through which visitors could get enriched with information regarding the Colobus monkey as they enjoyed a nature walk. The Nomads hotel, which still has a very rich forest patch in their premises, joined hands with the Colobus Trust not only to talk the walk but also to walk the talk of conserving the environment. The planning and implementation of this marvelous idea took four days.

Above: Peter talks about the forest

This walk begins at the Nomads reception desk where one receives a warm welcome and gets guided professionally through the trail. During the walk one gets to see and learn about indigenous trees over a century old and most importantly come across the precious, almost extinct, Colobus monkeys. For bird lovers, this is the perfect place as well as a haven for other creatures such as millipedes (almost a foot long) and forest rodents. One gets furnished with information regarding primates, medicinal herbs and the coral forest.

Above: an example of the tree labeling on the trail

This project will enhance knowledge and also appreciation of the unique flora and fauna of the visitors together with the residents. If we keep cutting trees and building more concrete structures, where will all the greens go? Where will we have nature walks and where will be the nature itself? Let’s join hands in this noble task of ensuring that we conserve our environment. How we conserve our environment today determines our future!

Thank you for visiting the Colobus blog!!

Peter

Field Officer

One response so far