A STOMPer relates his friend's troubles with squirrels, monkeys and rats. His friend lives in a bungalow near a forested area off Bukit Timah Road.
"I visited a friend who is staying in a sprawling bungalow at Swiss Club Ave.
"Behind the house is a forest where creatures like monkeys, squirrels and snakes lurk.
"The squirrels gnaw at the wires in his house, damaging the telephones and burglar alarms. They chew areca nuts on the trees and drop the shells in the garden.
"To date he has caught about 10 squirrels in a cage and drowned them all.
"The monkeys steal his bananas from the trees and they prove to be too elusive for his traps.
"He is also worried that rats from his neighbour's garbage cans may breed in his storeroom. He has bought some rat poison to keep the rodents at bay.
"HDB dwellers often complain about their neighbours but living in a private bungalow is also not worry-free."
Related post: Nightmare bungalow: Wild animals eat my flowers and fish, and steal my wife's watch! (31st January 2009)
The photos don't seem very relevant to the content of the post, do they?
I'm sure that this particular house has been mentioned on STOMP before, but now I am seriously getting pissed off. This guy is trapping and drowning squirrels? And based on the text, I think he is prepared to do the same to monkeys.
According to the Wild Animals and Birds Act:
Under the Wild Animals and Birds Act, it is an offence for any person to kill, take or keep any wild animal or bird, other than those specified in the Schedule such as mynas, pigeons and crows, without a license. Any person found doing so shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding S$1,000 and to the forfeiture of the animal.
Frankly, people like these make me contemplate acts of great violence.
You choose to move to a place close to nature reserves, this is what you have to live with.
When this house was first mentioned on STOMP, I made some comments that are still applicable:
Frankly, the problem here doesn't lie with the presence of wildlife, but rather, the inability of humans to adapt their behaviour so as to minimise the conflict. While the common (and deplorable) knee-jerk reaction would be to kill every insect, monkey, squirrel, bird and so on and so forth that even dares to come close to your home, that defeats the entire point of wanting to live close to Nature in the first place! There are countless non-lethal methods to prevent wildlife intrusions, that are not prohibitively expensive, and in fact, require just a bit of common sense.
Come on, is it too much to invest in some heavy-duty trunking for your wires? Are you really going to admit that you're trapping squirrels and drowning them just because they drop nutshells in your garden? Oh for God's sake, what on Earth made you think that it was a justifiable means of dealing with the issue?
This is just what's wrong with animal management in Singapore. In so many people's minds, killing is the only solution. Crows making too much noise? Shoot! Stray cats wandering around? Cull! Rats congregating in the park because of litter? Poison! Words cannot describe how much I despise people who hold such a mentality.
In the end, these are NOT animal problems. These are people problems.
I'm just too mad to think straight right now. All I can say is that this person has earned my contempt and scorn.
What a pathetic person.
