The Year Gone Wild: Dispute over dolphins

This year, animals hogged national panda-monium over Kai Kai and Jia Jia and controversy over the culling of wild boar to the debate on keeping dolphins in captivity at Resorts World Sentosa’s Marine Life Park. Grace Chua looks at the year animals took centre stage.
Straits Times 28 Dec 12;

FOR four years, Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) has been fighting a public relations battle with animal welfare activists over its move to bring in 25 wild-caught bottlenose dolphins. When two of them died in 2010 in Langkawi, furore erupted.

Before RWS could mend fences, another died en route to Singapore last month, prompting advocacy group Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) to call for a global boycott of all properties owned by parent firm Genting.

In the Philippines, environment activists sued RWS and two government agencies, in a bid to stop the dolphins' export. But while the case was being heard, RWS shipped the dolphins to Singapore, and could face indirect contempt of court charges. RWS said the export complied with all regulations.

Its first project under its conservation programme is one to save Irrawaddy dolphins in a southern Thailand lake.

Acres has invited RWS to a public debate on Jan 19 next year, for the public to make its own decisions on the issue.

Marine Mania
Straits Times 28 Dec 12;

MORE of Singapore's marine life was unearthed, dredged up or netted this year, on a wide-ranging expedition in October.

The northern shores expedition was the first major one in the five-year Comprehensive Marine Biodiversity Survey, an audit of Singapore's marine and shore life that began in late 2010.

The survey was led by the National Parks Board with the National University of Singapore.

From Chek Jawa to Changi, local and international researchers and an army of volunteers spent two and a half weeks digging up, preserving, photographing and cataloguing the specimens, which ranged from the tiniest, never-seen-before sea slugs to plate-size horseshoe crabs.

Originally three years long, the study was this year extended to five years to fully document marine life here. It is funded by private donations from firms like Shell, as well as public funds, and will help government planners identify and prioritise biodiversity hot spots to conserve.

Next year, there will be another expedition - this time to the Southern Islands.

Pig Tales
Straits Times 28 Dec 12;

IT WAS hardly a "boar-ing" year for animal welfare activists who, in May, were shocked to hear the National Parks Board (NParks) planned to cull the island's wild pigs using somewhat questionable methods.

The creatures, previously thought to live only on Pulau Ubin and Pulau Tekong, have been spotted in greater numbers on mainland Singapore in recent years and if uncontrolled could become a public menace, said NParks.

True enough, barely a month later, two found their way to Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park. One apparently charged at a boy, five, and knocked him over.

Still, NParks' decision did not sit well with activists and even residents of Upper Peirce, where the largest wild boar population has been seen.

NParks had told welfare groups it was planning to shoot them with bows and arrows, but activists desired a more humane solution. Residents, too, sided with the pigs, insisting they were hardly a nuisance. NParks relented, but only to the extent of considering other culling methods.

Now, an enclosure has been built to round them up before vets sedate and euthanise them. NParks said none has been caught and put down yet.

The birds of Bidadari
Straits Times 28 Dec 12;

THE former Bidadari cemetery near Woodleigh is slated to become an HDB estate with some 12,000 homes - but it is also a haven for the birds.

Nature lovers have been flocking to the 93-hectare patch of grassland, documenting the migratory and resident birds there. They want a 24ha section of the future housing estate conserved, saying it is a particular hot spot for hornbills, eagles, kingfishers and even rare migratory birds like the Japanese paradise flycatcher.

Birders have set up a Facebook group to share their sightings, and the Nature Society is submitting a proposal to the authorities specifying which parts of Bidadari are richest in wildlife.

The first infrastructure work to turn Bidadari into a housing estate is expected to begin by the end of this year, and the new town may be completed as early as 2018; its design is supposed to emphasise the area's heritage and greenery

Cats in Flats
Straits Times 28 Dec 12;

AFTER years of scratching at lawmakers' doors, meowing plaintively and begging, cat lovers living in Housing Board flats in Chong Pang are now allowed to keep kitties in their apartments, under a new two-year pilot scheme.

They have to microchip and sterilise their cats, make sure they stay indoors, and put mesh on their windows and doors to prevent the cats from sneaking out.

HDB owners keen on the scheme, which covers about 120 blocks, must register with the Cat Welfare Society by Jan 31.

In April, Action for Singapore Dogs and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals started a year-long pilot scheme to rehome stray mongrels in HDB flats. Most are medium-sized dogs, which the HDB does not permit in public housing. To date, 18 dogs have found new homes.

A committee reviewing animal welfare laws here is finalising its recommendations, and will submit them to the Government early next year.