Wildlife in Lion City
An amusing thing about Singapore is that its national mascot Merlion — lion with a mermaid tail — is a relatively new thing created in the 60s to elevate the remarkability and uniqueness of the island. Singapore tourist board brushed up on an ancient legend about a wild and dangerous creature on the shores that was scared away into the deep waters by a voyager prince of Nusantara. In 1972, the designed and crafted locally Merlion received its material shape in a sculpture welcoming city visitors. However, there is no evidence that any wild lions with or without fishtails even live on the island.
On the contrary — wild tigers swam to Singapore Island from the Malay Peninsula and were thriving until the beginning of the XX century. In 1850 200 humans were reported dead after tiger attacks. With the rapid plantation spread, the situation became feral and the colonial government was offering a very generous reward for the hunters. Reportedly, in 1930 the last wild tiger was killed in Singapore and ironically it happened along with the opening of the first brewery for iconic Tiger beer.
However, it would be wrong to assume that urbanism completely won over wildlife in Singapore. Tropical nature always finds its way. Macaques are the natives of the island and over the several last years, especially during the lockdowns, the monkeys have expanded their habitat from the parks and nature reserves to living districts and the breadwinners hunt for food. I was at a friend’s dinner at the landed house next to the park and while we were at the dinner table a macaque alpha male got into the kitchen from the back door and in a split second ran away with the pack of fish skin chips. Apparently, urban monkeys are truly omnivore and their taste palette built in the city are way beyond bananas. Another collision with wild monkeys happened to me on a walking trail in MacRitchie Nature Reserve. It started all with pastoral scenes of baby macaques leaching their mothers’ breasts and ritual hair combing until — the betraying sound of a plastic bag in my tote bag and an alpha father was on my shoulder clutching the bag to open (for the record there was no food inside only my yoga pants and a bottle of water). My son hissed the alpha father away from me and the whole tribe moved from the trail deeper into the rainforest.
If you want more about monkeys check out this one by
Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages
Singapore’s urban jungle is full of other creatures like otters who might decide to cross the busy road to make their way to water or large lizards and turtles enjoying their life in the Botanical Garden. Nevertheless, the main persistent wildlife winners over urban surfaces are the bugs. I will not go into details because haven’t made the picture to prove my point but trust me if you ever search for muffin cups in a kitchen dish cabinet of a landed house in Singapore there is a very high chance of disturbing and witnessing running the largest cockroaches you have ever seen in your life and can even imagine. You chop your carrots or stir soup, while they are always there near you breeding, eating, and waiting when you are gone.
Singapore, Sept 2023
An amazing piece on the same subject:
