Crow team all aboard to rescue monkey

The centre’s primate officer, Tayla Hawkins and clinic nurse, Kylie Hawkins, immediately left to go and assist. “We searched the vessel until 6pm on Tuesday evening until a lightning storm hit and conditions became too dangerous to work in. It was also getting too dark to be able to locate the monkey. With the help of the crew on board the ship, we managed to spot the monkey various times throughout the day, however, we had no luck with capturing him. Our team contacted both Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife as well as the Durban and Coast SPCA, who had both sent out representatives to assist later in the day but as conditions worsened we could not continue our search into the night,” said Tayla.

The vessel was set to leave at 4am Wednesday morning, however, after meeting with the captain, the decision was made to hold the ship back until they could successfully rescue the monkey. Crow left a trap on board the ship with the hopes of the monkey being hungry enough to be contained. This seemed almost unimaginable as the ship was over 200m long and 50m wide and finding this trap would be like finding a needle in a haystack for this monkey.
“We planned to board the ship with the assistance of other animal organisations first thing Wednesday morning with multiple traps and more people to help search the ship. At 7am Wednesday morning, as we were about to dispatch our team, we received the amazing news that the monkey had made its way into the trap. This was the best news possible as the welfare of this monkey was our first priority and after searching for hours the previous day we knew the task of catching this monkey would be daunting to all involved,” said Tayla.

The large adult male has now been quarantined at Crow and will have various health checks and tests performed by their vets to ensure he has not consumed any hazardous materials or contracted any diseases. Once they are certain he is in good shape, this male will be introduced into one of our existing troops which will be released back into the wild away from urban areas.

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