Jozani
Stretching across the waist of the island, which connects the two northern thirds of Zanzibar to the remaining southern third, is Jozani Chwaka Bay National Park, the only national park in Zanzibar.
It is home to the Sykes’ monkey, also called the white-throated monkey, and is named for English naturalist Colonel William Henry Sykes, whose discoveries throughout the early to mid-nineteenth century within the animal kingdom were hugely important. His discoveries included fifty-six birds which led some of them being named after him also, such as Sykes' lark and Sykes’ wagtail.
Sykes’ monkeys are quite happy to come into close contact with humans and have a habit of bothering the locals. This particular monkey pictured here was more than happy to use my head as a stepping-stone to bridge the jump from a branch on one side of the jungle path to another the other, jumping back and forth and back and forth and back again until I moved on.
The forest is also home to the red colobus, or Kirk's red colobus after Sir John Kirk, a British Resident of Zanzibar, who played companion to explorer David Livingstone as well as playing a key role in bringing about the end of slavery in Zanzibar. During his time in Zanzibar he brought the red colobus to the attention of zoological science.
Along with the Sykes’ monkey, the red colobus was long considered a nuisance to the locals. The monkeys would help themselves to farmers’ yields, wherein as retaliation the farmers would cut off the monkeys tails or outright kill them.
As a result the red colobus is now classified as an endangered species and, while having been adopted as the flagship species for conservation in Zanzibar since the mid-1990s, their numbers are still dwindling due to their continuing prosecution as well as the deforestation of their homeland.
The monkeys are incredibly slow-moving, similar to sloths, and is not a harmful animal in any way unless you’re part of the vegetation. The local government has put in place a means for compensating the local farmers’ for their loss of crops, so that their damages aren’t so impactful, but unfortunately people have grown superstitious towards them and think them a symbol of bad luck for farmers.
Jozani National Park is also home to bush babies, more than 50 species of butterfly and 40 species of birds, such as this crowned hornbill.
Another resident of the forest is the Zanzibar leopard, though no-one has seen one since 2002. No photographs are known to exist of this particular leopard species, though trail camera footage from a 2018 documentary series seems to have potentially captured proof that they are still kicking about somewhere.
The island also has an expanse of mangrove trees which make for good breeding grounds for birds. Mangrove trees are able to survive in salty waters where much other flora and fauna cannot. Because of this there aren’t any predators to prey on the nests of birds.
Around the forest can also be found the Jozani Sea Turtle Sanctuary, where sea turtles are protected and eventually released into the wild once they are old enough.
They are hoping to build a pool-side beach on which the turtles can lay their eggs, further encouraging the steady increase of their population. They also have a number of different reptiles including a type of giant tortoise, as well as various fish.
Just down the road is the Zanzibar Butterfly Centre, where a large netted area has been set up to help facilitate the numbers of the various butterfly species that float their way across the island.