| Rescue of a ‘Red Baboon’ by Base Titanium
Earlier this week Colobus Conservation was alerted to an infant baboon that had become stuck in the ‘slimes dam’ at the Base Titanium* mine site, but thanks to the quick thinking and action of the mine operating staff the infant was rescued, cleaned and re-united with its family. While this story is not a Colobus Conservation rescue, it is a unique combination of heart breaking and heart warming and we want to share it with our supporters on behalf of Base Titanium as a Thank-you to all involved for caring and saving this infants life.
At the Base Titanium mine site there are two large baboon troops, known as the west troop and the east troop. The infant in this story is from the east troop whom spend much of their time around the tailings facility. The tailings, or slime dam is an area constructed from the deposit of left over material from the mining process and in this case is a red muddy slime. The east troop spends a lot of time playing on the sand embankments boarding the tailing facility, the younger ones are often observed actually rolling down the sand dunes very much as you could imagine human children doing. The fun that they have is almost tangible. On occasions they roll too far and end up on the edge of the red muddy slimes and are referred to as the ‘red baboons’, but never before has one got stuck.
The images below show the process of finding the baboon, rescuing her and cleaning her up, before she ran off towards the forest and back to her troop. |
