Colobus Trust

Category: Habitat Restoration/Conservation, Research, community, deforestation, volunteer | Date: Nov 21 2009 | By: colobus

On Wednesday afternoon staff and volunteers from the Colobus Trust completed a 3-day census of Colobus monkeys in the Gongoni Forest Reserve. WWF had given us a small amount of funding to conduct the census, which would use the Colobus monkey as an indicator of the quality of the forest. We had rangers from the Kenya Forest Service with us who were armed with rifles to protect us from buffalo, and locals with pangas (machetes) to help us navigate through the forest.

We were divided into three groups and given GPSs with a coordinate which we would attempt to follow down to the other edge of the forest in a straight line. The first day was extremely dense and thick because it was all secondary growth forest. Everyone battled their way through the undergrowth, sometimes crawling, and it took one group 2 hours to cover 1 km.  Some Colobus were seen but everyone was hoping for more!

The second day of the census was definitely not what we were expecting it to be. Immediately off the bat poaching camps and snares were found. The Gongoni Forest has become really thin due to illegal cutting, mostly by local poachers who chop down large trees and sell the wood for house-building or furniture-making. Whilst making their way through the woods, one of our teams came across a group of poachers who were in the middle of cutting up trees. The forest ranger with them told the team to be quiet and to get down. They waited whilst the ranger snuck up on the poachers and then shouted at them to put their hands above their head and get on the ground. One man escaped but the other was caught. The ranger marched him out off the forest along with the census team and they met up with another census team at the other end of the transect. Both of the rangers wanted to be the ones to bring the poacher in which meant that our census activities for the day came to an abrupt end. Both teams walked with the guards and the poacher to a meeting point where a police truck was going to come and pick them up. On the way, the guards spotted another poacher with an even larger bundle of wood. They sprinted after him and one of them fired a blank to scare the poacher. Before everyone knew it there were two poachers handcuffed and waiting under a tree to be picked up.

On the third day, some transects had to be modified in order to complete the census on time due to the fact that the poachers on the day before had set us back. Two teams completed two 3.5 km transects but one of these teams saw no monkeys at all! Far too many poaching camps and garages (where poachers chop the wood) were discovered. It was sad to realize how hard the Kenya Forest Service’s job is and how ineffective some methods may be at preventing poaching.

It was a relief for most to finish their last transects and escape the heat and humidity of the woods. Those days spent in the forest were difficult work! Making the way through lots of heavy bush, vines and thorny branches did not make travel very easy. Despite it all, the volunteers are happy that they had the experience but are thrilled to get back to normal days at the trust!

We’ll give you the results of our census as soon as we can!

Thanks for reading,

Hannah Follender

Eco-volunteer

And The Colobus Team

Tags: Census, Colobus Trust, deforestation, diani, Kenya, Logging, Poaching, primates, snares, volunteering

No responses yet

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

No responses yet

Category: Education, Human - Primate Conflict Resolution, community, volunteer | Date: Nov 03 2009 | By: colobus

On Wednesday the 28^th of October we had a visit from the children of The Hope Academy in Diani.  The main aim of their visit was to educate the pupils about the different primate species found in the Diani Beach area and to highlight the conservation issues they face, particularly regarding the Colobus monkey.  The children are taught that these issues are largely due to human actions, such as cutting down their natural habit and keeping monkeys as pets.  They are also taught that other aspects of our lifestyle inadvertently have a negative impact on the primates such the electrical lines and road which run adjacent to the forest they live in, causing a large number of injuries and deaths to local primates.

Above: Some of the pupils and teachers listening to John

To ensure to continued awareness and future survival of the Colobus we show the pupils what actions the Colobus Trust are doing to tackle these issues. We also demonstrate to them that by helping in small ways such as planting native trees they can have a positive impact on the future of the Colobus monkey.

Above: Colobus staff with teachers and pupils from Hope Academy

We hope that the pupils found the visit rewarding and that they enjoyed their time at the Colobus Trust!

Kate

Eco-volounteer

Tags: Colobus Trust, community, diani, Education, Hope Academy, Kenya, primates

No responses yet

Category: Habitat Restoration/Conservation, Human - Primate Conflict Resolution | Date: Jun 08 2009 | By: colobus

It’s always great to have media publicity and I even happier when local papers pick up stories. The Coast Spirit, a new local newspaper distributed for free across Kenya’s coastline has published an article by ex-assistant Gwili which was taken from his very interesting blog post about the unique and very serious problems we are facing in Diani. Our two biggest issues at the moment are electrocutions (we have lost 14 monkeys since the beginning of 2008) and road kills.

Currently, we are gearing towards putting it another 170mts of insulation of open electric cables this month and hope to do about the same amount in July. It costs slightly less than a dollar to do one metre of cabling. If anyone would like to contribute, please do donate. THIS REALLY SAVES LIVES.

To read more about this, click on the image below. And thanks very much to the Coast Spirit for covering this critical issue…

Tags: Coast Spirit, diani, electrocutions, Habitat Restoration/Conservation, human-wildlife conflict, primates, Protection, Urban Conflict

One response so far

Category: Habitat Restoration/Conservation, Human - Primate Conflict Resolution | Date: Sep 10 2008 | By: colobus

We had a fantastic day yesterday, together with Camp Kenya & KPLC we started insulating and covering powerlines in two areas where previous fatalities have occurred!

Firstly we had to prepare the PVC piping by cutting it laterally. Students and Colobus Trust staff were doing this for most of the day and together cut over 200 meters of piping…all this with only little improvised saws!

We took advantage of a planned power outage for the whole of the south coast to allow us to get a whole days work done. Once the pipes were prepared the KPLC team put them in place covering two of the four lines, thus insulating the span. All together we insulated over 100 meters of lines in two key areas. We hope the success of this pilot project will lead to great things! 

Many watched as this momentous occasion occurred and we hope to get more of our hotspots done next week.

Below is a photograph of the piping in place 

We will keep you updated!

Gwili

Tags: colobus, diani, electrocutions, kplc, primates

6 responses so far

Category: Habitat Restoration/Conservation, Human - Primate Conflict Resolution | Date: Sep 01 2008 | By: colobus

As many of you will already know, the un-insulated power lines that run through Diani Forest are responsible for numerous wildlife fatalities. In the last 4 years The Colobus Trust has recorded over 60 confirmed cases where arboreal primates have been killed instantly by power lines that pass through the forest. Shockingly 46 of these cases were Angolan Colobus Monkeys, claiming more lives than any other threat, natural or manmade. Even more are wounded, where the grounding of current can cook flesh to the bone and result in the loss of limbs and frequently, infection that leads an agonising death.

Arboreal (tree-dwelling) primates natural instinct is to avoid coming down to the ground (where they are more at risk from predators) and they use any available material, natural or otherwise as pathways through the forest. Therefore if human encroachment on a forested habitat is to be non-detrimental to the environment, all power-lines should ideally be underground. But this is expensive. Suitable short-term solutions have been found by trimming back branches allowing access to power-lines. This has been a core part of our Electrocution Management Program for the last 10 years. Where Colobus Trust teams have worked in collaboration with the Kenya Power & Lighting Co. Ltd. Another “longer”-term option we have always considered is insulation. A project we have long been pushing KPLC for.

Thankfully there has been a breakthrough in our work to combat this horrible situation. This was in the form of an idea brought forward in a meeting initiated between the Colobus Trust and KPLC. Joseph Njoroge, Managing Director and CEO, Mr Huko, head of KPLC’s Diani Branch as well as a high-powered team from Nairobi represented KPLC. Also in attendance were the, the Chairperson of the South Coast Residents Association, Volker Bassen & Nimu Njonjo (local resident conservationists who run the East African Whale Shark Trust) and the Colobus Trust’s management & two of the Trust’s Trustees. 

During the meeting Volker suggested a novel idea to combat electrocutions. Using PVC piping, which can slide over the power lines, without need for them to be lowered, then fasted with ties. This would act to insulate the lines and considerably reduce the decline of the species! The initiative steps in this wonderful idea have now begun and we hope KPLC will insulate their pilot project area (one of our identified electrocution hotspots) soon and will update you on progress!

Below is a picture of those in attendance (except one who is behind the camera!)

This has been a landmark achievement for all involved and we hope that working together with KPLC & other organisations we can really tackle this pressing issue.

The Colobus Team

Tags: colobus, diani, electrocutions, kplc, primates

2 responses so far