Miss Waldron’s Red Colobus Piliocolobus waldroni

Protecting The Rare, Precious Red Colobus Will Safeguard Africa’s Forests

Red colobus monkeys in Jozani Chwaka Bay National Park rainforest in Zanzibar. Sander Meertins/Getty Images

Very few people have heard of the rarest primate in #Africa – The Red Colobus. Featuring funky hairstyles and expressive faces they daringly leap between trees to search for food. Every species of red #colobus is under threat from hunting and rainforest clearing for #palmoil, #cocoa and #meat agriculture. Their disappearance from forests heralds the beginning of the vanishing of other animals: gorillas, chimpanzees and elephants. Another successful conservation effort for the Zanzibar red colobus led to a national park being created to protect this species. Conservationists hope that the same can be done for the Red Colobus species in the form of funding and greater protections. #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife

Miss Waldron’s Red Colobus Piliocolobus waldroni

xMiss Waldron’s Red Colobus, a secretive old world primate sport chestnut, black, and white white fur that surrounds their expressive faces. They live in the dense canopies of West Africa’s dwindling forests. Their story is one of ever-increasing fragility, on the edge of survival. Sightings of these magnificent primates have faded away since 1978. The last evidence, a skin, emerged in 2002.

These monkey species have been driven towards the extinction by palm oil, cocoa, and rubber plantations along with hunting for bushmeat. Their calls, once a common cacophony are now nearly permanently silenced. Miss Waldron’s Red Colobus serve as a living warning for forest health. They disappear before most other mammals wherever the forests fall. Support indigenous sovereignty and safeguarding of ecosystems—use your wallet as a weapon and #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4Wildlife.