Paula Kahumbu helped with the relocation of Colobus monkeys to Soysambu back in 1999. Today she recounts the event

The guereza colobus at Soysambu came from the Malewa river – with the original troop size somewhere between 9 and 15. There was one adult male, several females and Juveniles. The monkeys were being killed by farmers as they were raiding the maize – the farmers had chopped every tree except eucalyptus so the colobus were living in the eucalyptus and feeding on maize.

This is not their natural habitat and the conservancy unfortunately only have a rough estimate of the number of monkeys originally introduced to the area. The current total is belived to be around 12. The monkeys are primarily leaf eaters with ruminant like stomachs. This allows them to digest the mature foliage, however, they also consume fruits, flowers and seeds. The colobinae species is generally found in Asia, but the colobus monkey is only found in Africa, and is therefore a rarity. Due to this fact, there is a large problem with poaching of the monkey’s for their skins and fur, which is traditionally used as tribal headgear or alternatively sold abroad or to tourists. It is therefore paramount that projects such as this one take place to help maintain this endangered animal.

We moved them in 1999 with WSPA and they escaped from the holding cage the same night. We feared they’d scatter but they didn’t. Dr Nick D’souza helped with the translocation – we didn’t need to do any darting or anything – just caught them in cages after about 3 months of habituation, then moved the cages to the news site and released the monkeys into a big cage.

When we came back the next morning they were in the acacia watching us as we searched like idiots amongst the bushes for them. It was the first ever translocation of colobus guereza in Kenya and went perfectly!