Dead birds, slithering snakes, and a roaming boar? What a week for wildlife in our urban jungle.
Both the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) and the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) were probably very busy the past couple of days fielding calls by the public over a number of faunal cases. Here’s what we found:
Snakes
We all had a little laugh watching a clip of some homeowners lamenting over a scared python urinating all over their living room in the midst of getting captured last Sunday. Its cold-blooded brethren soon reared their heads in public again — this time without pee involved.
On Tuesday afternoon, a resident of Punggol alerted Stomp after spotting a reticulated python at a traffic junction between Waterway Point and Punggol Bus Interchange. According to her account to Stomp, there were some passers-by at the scene directing crowds away from the snake as it was pretty hard to notice on the ground. ACRES personnel rescued the python after arriving at the scene, and thankfully so, as it was in danger of getting run over by cars on the road.
The next day, it was the AVA who was alerted to another snake spotted at an HDB block in Queensway. The yellow python was discovered near the block’s rubbish chute area, according to a resident who spoke to Channel NewsAsia.
“Some residents placed the rubbish near it so that they don’t go near it,” the resident said. An odd way to warn others of the python’s presence though.
It was soon removed from the area by an AVA contractor.
Wild boar
Yesterday morning, a wild boar was seen roaming around a residential estate in Choa Chu Kang. It caused quite a scene in the neighborhood, with residents and passersby taking pictures and videos of the little guy. Two policemen dropped by the area — a patch of grass near Block 562, Choa Chu Kang Street 52 — with one of them wielding a riot shield.
The boar remained remarkably chill amidst all the attention, and it eventually left on its own accord to a forested area near Choa Chua Kang Way. According to ACRES, the lone boar had been spotted in the neighborhood over the past couple of weeks.
Birds
It was yesterday afternoon that residents of Block 390 along Bukit Batok West Avenue 5 came across a pretty distressing sight: dead and dying birds all over their void deck.
The Straits Times reported that residents witnessed some birds — both sparrows and pigeons — struggling to fly and gasping for air. Slowly, they died one by one. One resident noted that the birds were found to have “what looked like white rice” in their mouths.
AVA personnel started removing the dead birds in the evening, and have yet to issue a statement about the alleged case of bird poisoning. We’ll update this piece once we hear from them.
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