Colobus Trust

Category: Primate Rescue/Rehabilitation, Progress report, volunteer | Date: Nov 20 2009 | By: colobus

Dear Readers,

We apologise for the lack of updates recently from the Trust! We’ve had a lot going on which we’ll update you all on in the next few days.

Regular visitors to our blog will know that we rescued a Bush Baby which we named Bahati. He was a favourite with the visiting school children as well as all the volunteers at the trust – even when we had to wake up every 3 hours to feed him! We taught him to jump over short distances and Marvo was building up to the ‘double jump’! Bahati was being fed on a diet of fruit and milk, but efforts to move him onto a diet of insects failed.

Last Monday he became a little weak but seemed to be improving and his appetite returned to normal. He was back to his noisy, active self on Tuesday. However when we woke him for one of his feeds on Wednesday afternoon he was very drowsy and would not feed. His condition did not improve and sadly he passed away later that day. As you all may know raising an infant without tender maternal care is very difficult and we did the best we could in order to see Bahati gradually become a healthy grown up Bush Baby but it was not meant to be.

Above: Our beloved Bahati with Marvo

He really was part of the family and his death has affected us all very strongly. We all miss him very much.

Thanks for reading and look out for our next update coming soon…

The Colobus Team.

Tags: bush baby, Colobus Trust, diani, Galago senegalensis, Kenya, primates, Progress report, volunteering

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Category: Human - Primate Conflict Resolution, Primate Rescue/Rehabilitation, Progress report, volunteer | Date: Nov 02 2009 | By: colobus

Bahati the bush baby has been with us for about 3 and a half weeks now- he is doing very well and things are looking up. He has started feeding on solid foods lately which is a good sign; he particularly seems to like bananas and papaya a lot. At least every volunteer at the trust takes turns to feed him everyday because he needs to be cared for and feed every 3 hours. Bahati has recently learned how to jump which is very impressive and he is gets better by the day. We have built him a wooden house, where he spends most of his time these days. We are all glad that we have been able to provide a home and the necessary love and care that he needs, and hopefully he will grow up to be a healthy self reliant bush baby who will take his rightful place in the ecosystem.

We will keep you informed about how Bahati is faring on in the near future.

Thanks,

Mavinya

Colobologist

Tags: bush baby, Colobus Trust, diani, Galago senegalensis, Kenya, Rescue, volunteer

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Category: Human - Primate Conflict Resolution, Primate Rescue/Rehabilitation, Progress report, volunteer | Date: Oct 27 2009 | By: colobus

We have been nursing the two infant bush babies that were rescued here in Diani. They were so young that at first we were not sure whether they would both survive but we decided to try anyway. The first bush baby, who we eventually named Bahati (meaning luck in Swahili), was about 3 weeks old; the other one, who we named Gizmo, was about 2 days old. We all knew it was going to be a challenge, primarily because at their tender ages they critically need maternal care. We quickly included them into our daily schedule which meant they were always with someone who was feeding, cleaning or monitoring them. This was an eventful task because they had to be fed every 2 hours, 24 hours a day, needed to be watched and we also had to massage their genital area to facilitate defecation.

Everybody at the trust had already started to create a bond with Bahati and Gizmo, and they had become very comfortable around us but unfortunately the young Gizmo passed away last week after a week with us. He was just too young to survive without his mother’s care. We will continue to provide 24 hour care for Bahati who is doing very well and we will let you know how he is getting on.

The Colobus Team.

Tags: bush baby, Colobus Trust, diani, Galago senegalensis, Kenya, Rescue, volunteer

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Category: Human - Primate Conflict Resolution, Progress report, volunteer | Date: Oct 16 2009 | By: colobus

There were two surprise arrivals at the Colobus Trust this week in the form of infant Bush Babies. The first, and larger of the two, was brought to the trust by a concerned resident of Diani, who had discovered the Bush Baby abandoned on his terrace. Only a day later, another bush baby found its way into the house here at Colobus Trust. It was Rob, one of the volunteers, who should be credited for rescuing the bush baby. Rob heard an unusual clicking sound coming from the education centre. On investigating, he found Nala- our resident cat- playing with the Bush Baby a corner of the room. Had it not been for Rob’s sharp hearing, the infant, which we believe to be just a few days old, would certainly have been eaten. Fortunately, Rob was able to pull Nala away before any serious harm was done.

Above: The elder Bush Baby resting on Polly

Being nocturnal the Bush Babies (we believe these are Galago senegalensis) spend their day sleeping either in a large cardboard box along with a soft toy acting as a comforter, or held in a kikoi with one of the volunteers.  As luck would have it, the two bush babies are getting along together very well and could not be happier when snuggling up to one another for a nice long sleep.

Above: The second arrival!

While Polly has taken the role of mother for the babies, everyone is doing their part in helping to feed and look after them. We are giving the Bush Babies round-the-clock care in order to ensure their survival and hope to be able to release them into the wild eventually.

Please feel free to post any suggestions for their names, or alternatively email them to info@colobustrust.org- we’d love to hear them.

Stay tuned for their progress!

The Colobus Team.

Tags: bush baby, Colobus Trust, Galago senegalensis, Kenya, Rescue, volunteer

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Category: Fundraising, Primate Rescue/Rehabilitation | Date: Jan 15 2009 | By: colobus

At The Colobus Trust, the phone often rings with news of dead or suffering animals that have been involved in road accidents or electrocuted on power lines.  So on Thursday 8 January it was a more pleasant surprise to receive a call about an animal that wasn’t injured but still needed our help.

The call was from a local resident about a bush baby she had been rearing as a pet for about a year.  Its wild instincts had started to kick in and it had bitten her earlier in the day so she decided it was time for the Colobus Trust to get involved.

Peter, Tim and I went round to pick it up and found it in a laundry basket – not the sort of place a bush baby is likely to feel most at home.  We brought it back to the vet clinic to give it a once over and it seemed particularly annoyed so it went straight into a carrier cage.

Over the next couple of days we worked to make one of the rehabilitation cages suitable in the quarantine area.  These cages are designed with larger primates in mind and Peter had once put a bush baby in and it was able to escape.  We had to reduce the hole size by winding wire around each individual opening to make the cage more secure.

To help save resources, and as a poetic form of recycling, we were able to use snare wires which have been collected from local forests over the past months to complete the job.  It was a long job but finally the cage was complete.

On Tuesday we were able to furnish the cage with a selection of foliage and branches from trees in the garden to enable the bush baby to have adequate cover during the day and to provide leaves to make a nest for sleeping.

Then came the transfer; true to form he was not happy at being woken in the middle of the day just to move into another cage.  Finally in he snarled and hissed at us in such a way that you wouldn’t think we had saved him from a life of captivity. Although they look cute and cuddly they can be very aggressive.

He seems to have settled in much more now and is certainly happier than he was.  The plan is to begin opening the cage in the evenings so he can go out exploring.  However it is uncertain whether he can be released in to the gardens here permanently.

Bush babies usually form small groups of mother and offspring or occasionally small bachelor groups.  The males use urine to mark boundaries of their territories and can be aggressive to intruders.  At the cottage there are already a group of bush babies which come to feed in the evenings so only time will tell if he will be accepted.

Because of this there are added pressures on the Trusts resources to continue feeding him until he is ready to be released; this is in addition to the seven vervet monkeys which continue to be housed at the Trust until they have built up the skills to survive back in the wild. The vervets are also rescued pets, some of whom have been with us over a year.

Any donations would be welcome to help with the upkeep of the bush baby or the vervet monkeys; while we try to feed them on wild foods when possible, in the dry season the possibility reduces so more supplemented food is required, all of which needs money to buy.  You can help us by using the “donate” button on the right hand side of this blog. All money donated goes directly towards helping support the Colobus Trust and helping us do such work.

Like other non-human primates, bush babies are considered likely sources of diseases that can cross species barriers and so they are not a good idea when considering a pet.  They are wild animals and while they may seem very cute, they have sharp teeth and can inflict a painful bite. Better to choose a cat or dog which have been domesticated specifically for this purpose.

Tracey Stenson, Colobologist

(Photos by Tim Jukes)

Tags: bush baby, Monkey, pets, vervet

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