Zanzibar Red Colobus Project
Studying the behaviour, ecology & physiology of Piliocolobus kirkii to help its conservation
ZRCP Director
Dr Alexander Georgiev
Since 2018 I have been been studying the Zanzibar red colobus (Piliocolobus kirkii) in Zanzibar. I am a Senior Lecturer in Primatology at Bangor University and lead a group of research students and senior academic collaborators interested in understanding the behavioural ecology, physiology and the conservation challenges that face this endemic and endangered monkey in East Africa.
The ZRCP field research assistants team
Our dedicated team of field research assistants is the bedrock of long-term data collection of the Zanzibar Red Colobus Project. They come from the communities surrounding Jozani-Chwaka Bay National Park and know the forest and the agricultural landscapes where we study the colobus inside out.
In this photo from 2024 you can see the ZRCP field team and the research students who were in the field at the time (from L to R): Owen Storer (PhD student at Bangor), Ali Kassim (with ZRCP since 2017), Rashid Adalla (with ZRPC since 2022), Patrick Allsop (PhD student at Bangor), Mwinyi Abdalla (with ZRCP since 2019), Molly Allum (BSc student at Bangor), Haji Abdalla (with ZRCP since 2019) and Haitham Aziz (with ZRCP since 2022).
Principal research team
The current group of research students (from BSc to PhD) and recent PhD graduates involved with primary data collection in Zanzibar
PhD Bangor University (2024)
Dr Zoe Melvin
Zoe completed her PhD research on Zanzibar colobus ecophysiology and resilience to climate change in 2024. She now works in education and, in her spare time, continues to work on publishing her work.
You can read her PhD Thesis here.
Publications:
Melvin et al. (2020) Methodological confounds of measuring urinary oxidative stress in wild animals. Ecology & Evolution.
PhD University of Southern California (2025)
Dr Koray Yilmaz
Koray competed his PhD with the Zanzibar Red Colobus Project in 2025. His thesis is titled 'The impact of habitat disturbance on stress, energetics, and behavior in the Zanzibar red colobus monkey (Piliocolobus kirkii).
PhD candidate (Bangor University)
Patrick Allsop
Patrick is studying behavioural plasticity in the Zanzibar red colobus. He is specifically focusing on variation in natal dispersal patterns, as well as the affects of anthropogenic disturbance on dietary plasticity and microbiomes.
PhD candidate (University of California Santa Barbara)
Hannah Frogge
Hannah studies the effects of anthropogenic disturbance on female colobus energetics, health, and reproductive function.
PhD candidate (Bangor University)
Owen Storer
Owen studies the parasite ecology of the Zanzibar red colobus and the affects of anthropogenic disturbance on infection across different habitats.
PhD candidate (Bangor University)
Harry Olgun
Harry completed a MScRes in Biological Sciences at Bangor in 2023 on the road ecology of the Zanzibar colobus monkeys. His PhD expands on that research to examine how habitat fragmentation affects colobus distribution and resilience across the land of Unguja at the whole-species level.
Publications:
Olgun et al. 2022 The implications of vehicle collisions for the Endangered endemic Zanzibar red colobus Piliocolobus kirkii. Oryx.
MSc student (State University of Zanzibar
Abdul Yusuf
Abdul's masters research focuses on the colobus living in the highly-urbanised village of Paje on the east coast of Zanzibar and their interactions with humans.
BSc Zoology with Primatology student (Bangor University)
Molly Allum
Molly is studying the crop-feeding behaviour of the colobus and how they perceive and respond to the potential risks of feeding on crops.
Senior Research Collaborators
The A to Z of our senior collaborators within and beyond Bangor University
Coming soon