Information has been taken with the permission from the Wakuluzu: Friends of the Colobus Trust - for further information please visit http://www.colobustrust.org/

INFANT COLOBUS RESCUE

Recently the Colobus Trust was called to Leopard Beach Hotel in Diani to collect the body of a female colobus monkey that had been killed in a fight, possibly with members of another troop.  The next day, staff members at the hotel heard the cries of an infant primate coming from a patch of forest near the hotel tree nursery.  On investigation they found a small infant colobus lying in the forest.  They called the Colobus Trust immediately. We sent a team to pick up the infant and brought her back to Colobus Cottage.  She was approximately 2 weeks old and still completely white (colobus infants are born white and gradually turn grey then black and white by about three months).  She was extremely dehydrated but otherwise seemed unhurt.  Volunteers took turns to care for the infant over the night, keeping her warm and rehydrating her by feeding her milk with a syringe.
The next day we decided that the best option for the infant's survival was to return her to her troop. A team of staff and volunteers went back to the hotel and using our knowledge of troop movements, we were able to locate the troop that she came from.  We placed her in a clearing just below the troop members, who were all watching us with great interest, and stepped back to see what would happen.  Immediately a female with an infant of her own rushed down the tree, picked our orphan up, and returned to the other troop members.  Our infant began suckling from her immediately.  Over the course of that day other troop members took it in turns to hold the baby, which she would tolerate for a while and then squeal to return to her adopted mother.   This behaviour is normal in Colobus monkeys.  We left the troop at dusk as they settled down for the night.   Since then we have had teams regularly monitoring the troop, and both infants and the female are doing well!