Speaker 1: if you've ever been in close proximity to a monkey,
Speaker 1: you know that they are not to be taken lightly
Speaker 1: over the years. There have been many cases of the
Speaker 1: common primates being running riot near us? You may have
Speaker 1: seen viral videos of monkeys slipping into HDB homes and
Speaker 1: making out like bandits for others of a secondary school
Speaker 1: boy negotiating with monkeys to return his school bag.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm a golfer and close encounters with monkeys have
Speaker 1: become part and parcel of the game personally have had
Speaker 1: monkeys steal my food right out of my buggy while
Speaker 1: I'm taking a shot and they'll grab anything they can find.
Speaker 1: I'm just glad they haven't taken my car keys or
Speaker 1: my hand phone.
Speaker 1: These are just some examples of increasing human wildlife encounters
Speaker 1: in Singapore, while other parts of the world may struggle
Speaker 1: with conflicts involving leopards, elephants and even lions. City dwellers
Speaker 1: aren't used to living with wild animals, much less those
Speaker 1: who willfully intrude into private spaces.
Speaker 1: But the solution can be down to just get rid
Speaker 1: of them. How can we learn to coexist with wildlife?
Speaker 1: This is where Dr. Andy Yang, president of the Jane
Speaker 1: Goodall Institute in Singapore comes in. She's a primatologist and
Speaker 1: has been involved in the work for more than 10 years.
Speaker 1: Welcome Andy, thanks for joining us in the climate conversations.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: I want to start with your childhood. Most kids want
Speaker 1: a cat, a dog, a hamster as a pet. But
Speaker 1: you had a pet monkey when you were 10 years old.
Speaker 1: How did you end up with one and what was
Speaker 1: it like
Speaker 2: When I was 10 years old? Family relatives who were
Speaker 2: sailors to Africa, they brought back this juvenile small monkey
Speaker 2: brown colour, which is actually quite common in Africa. So
Speaker 2: to us we just felt like it's a
Speaker 2: more animal that needs to be taken care of. So
Speaker 2: for a few years I would say I didn't see
Speaker 2: anything wrong with that. Nobody told me it was wrong to.
Speaker 2: I even brought my monkey down on my bicycle and
Speaker 2: my neighbors would just be curious to say, oh, you
Speaker 2: have a cute monkey. I guess when I was in
Speaker 2: secondary school, just a couple of years later, a few
Speaker 2: hours that I have at home before going home will
Speaker 2: be playing with it. But then most of time it
Speaker 2: would be alone. So you could see that it's walking
Speaker 2: up and down within a small space that was confined
Speaker 2: to
Speaker 2: like how stress animals would be behaving. So that was
Speaker 2: the first sign to me that it's not very happy.
Speaker 2: And so it was after contacting a few organizations and
Speaker 2: individuals that we managed to send it back to Africa
Speaker 1: and had a name
Speaker 2: A boy, not very creative, but for 10 years I
Speaker 2: think that's the best I could do. I think that's
Speaker 1: endearing. What would you say was the fondest memory with
Speaker 1: a boy?
Speaker 2: Maybe the most memorable one would be that it would
Speaker 2: like to sit next to me to groom my hair.
Speaker 2: You know how monkeys, if you observe them in a
Speaker 2: while they would pick apart the hair to take out
Speaker 2: parasites or any particles. Right? So he was doing it
Speaker 2: to me on my hair. I didn't know what it was.
Speaker 2: So I just mimic their behavior their back to him.
Speaker 2: And so I think from him, I learned a lot
Speaker 2: about animal behavior too.
Speaker 1: And our boy was the reason why you got into primatologist.
Speaker 1: E I suppose your earliest in kind of with a
Speaker 1: monkey must have taught you that there's something special, something
Speaker 1: different about primates
Speaker 2: because of the few years ahead with my pet monkey.
Speaker 2: I also got to realize the threats that they're facing.
Speaker 2: Why did I get this monkey all the way from africa.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like an illegal wildlife trade.
Speaker 2: So I got really interested to learn more about the
Speaker 2: different varieties and species of monkeys and how I could
Speaker 2: help them, which is by in university I enrolled into Biology.
Speaker 1: So you became an expert who does research and monkeys
Speaker 1: and your work
Speaker 1: work on primates have taken you all across asia. How
Speaker 1: many kinds have you come up close and personal with.
Speaker 2: There are about 600 species of primates in the world,
Speaker 2: but I've only seen about 45, not even 10%, but
Speaker 2: I'm trying my best.
Speaker 2: So a few examples of this within ASia outside Singapore,
Speaker 2: in japan, the japanese macaques in san the background the
Speaker 2: snow was amazing and then also in Indonesia, the Gibbons,
Speaker 2: they're calling early in the morning and imagine you're sitting
Speaker 2: in this house watching the forest, sipping coffee, listening to
Speaker 2: the given cause it's really quite amazing the rainforest experience.
Speaker 1: So you work revolves around raffles, banded langurs which are
Speaker 1: critically endangered primates. How many of them are here in Singapore?
Speaker 2: In Singapore, we have 70, so 70 and in Malaysia
Speaker 2: we have about 200-300,
Speaker 2: Nowhere else in the world, just in Singapore and Malaysia.
Speaker 2: So we're talking about a global population size of maybe
Speaker 2: just under 400 to 400.
Speaker 1: I hear they're extremely shy. They're very fast here that
Speaker 1: you had a bit of a shoulder injury trying to
Speaker 1: track them down. Can you tell me what happened? I'm
Speaker 2: not meant to be a monkey, but I tried very
Speaker 2: hard to be. So
Speaker 2: besides the fewer where you go to the jungle, you
Speaker 2: track to look for the animals. We want to come
Speaker 2: up with methods in order to collect information more efficiently.
Speaker 2: And so we started to climb trees to put motion
Speaker 2: sensor cameras on the trees in order to detect animal presence.
Speaker 2: But that would involve of course being professionally trained certified,
Speaker 2: getting permission from National Park support
Speaker 2: and then during the actual climbing, it requires a lot
Speaker 2: of strength and I'm scared of heights, a lot of
Speaker 2: problems and
Speaker 1: your work depends heavily on collecting fecal samples that sounds
Speaker 1: like
Speaker 2: fun. If I were to tell my parents that I'm
Speaker 2: actually collecting poop for my work. I'm not sure what
Speaker 2: they would think.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So another way to collect more information is through
Speaker 2: their fecal samples because in feces it actually contains a
Speaker 2: lot of information. It has the D. N. A. Of
Speaker 2: the animal which can tell us a lot more about
Speaker 2: the genetics, whether it's healthy or not. What's the relationship
Speaker 2: with the other individual monkeys in the population? Are they
Speaker 2: experiencing any inbreeding problems in the feces? It also contains
Speaker 2: the D. N. A. Of
Speaker 2: the plants that they have consumed. So by examining the
Speaker 2: plant DNA, we can also obtain information on the species
Speaker 2: of plants they have eaten for the past two days
Speaker 2: compared to checking the forest, observing them through binoculars and
Speaker 2: camera maybe there's one species of plants that they were eating.
Speaker 2: We have to collect the specimens get identified takes a
Speaker 2: long time. That's
Speaker 1: fascinating. And the primate environments that are affected by climate change,
Speaker 1: as you said, are
Speaker 1: hundreds of primate species around the world. But then three
Speaker 1: quarters of them are actually facing population declines. Which is
Speaker 1: really sad. How concerned are you that the effects of
Speaker 1: climate change are pushing many of them towards extinction
Speaker 2: on top of climate change. There's also of course the
Speaker 2: associated activities like the divorce station that's really clearing the forest,
Speaker 2: forcing them to lose their homes and poached from the
Speaker 2: wild for the trade. For example, of course, then you
Speaker 2: have the climate change that would come in because with
Speaker 2: the changing temperatures and conditions, different plant species will be
Speaker 2: affected as well. So they're losing their food source, losing
Speaker 2: their home severely affecting their population size with changing temperatures.
Speaker 2: The animals in areas where they have extreme drought condition
Speaker 2: or hot temperatures, the streams might be drying up, they
Speaker 2: might not be rain. And so in that case finding
Speaker 2: water is of essence for those animals.
Speaker 1: So your main research is geared towards the protection of primates,
Speaker 1: but you're also invested in the question, how can we
Speaker 1: humans coexist peacefully with nature and wildlife? And the friction
Speaker 1: between man and nature has been inevitable like otters eating
Speaker 1: up very expensive fish or wild boar attacking a passer
Speaker 1: by or monkey stealing food and
Speaker 1: try to enter our homes. Why are we seeing some
Speaker 1: of these incidences? Should we be concerned?
Speaker 2: I think there could be various factors during covid when
Speaker 2: people are not allowed to maybe go outdoors to certain areas,
Speaker 2: they can't go overseas as well.
Speaker 2: And then there is the easing of the restrictions, you
Speaker 2: could go out to nature areas. And so that's when
Speaker 2: people started to maybe see more of this wildlife that
Speaker 2: they previously might not have encountered. Then they realized that hey,
Speaker 2: we have this wildlife and then also with social media, right?
Speaker 2: Taking photos and putting online the drones, flying to take
Speaker 2: images and to record the biodiverse in Singapore. And then
Speaker 2: also with Singapore's aim to transform from a garden city
Speaker 2: to a city in nature. That also means that we
Speaker 2: want to integrate more of nature into our lives into
Speaker 2: our surroundings. And so with that, it also means that
Speaker 2: there will be more chances to encounter animals. But if
Speaker 2: we are not equipped with the knowledge to know how
Speaker 2: to interact or not interact with wildlife, that's when we
Speaker 2: might inevitably or accidentally attract them into urban areas or
Speaker 2: our homes. That's when news articles might say monkey attack,
Speaker 2: pick attack after attack,
Speaker 2: But news articles usually would be reporting incidents or accidents, right?
Speaker 2: If it's a monkey that is doing its own monkey business,
Speaker 2: playing with their own family members or authors eating fish
Speaker 2: in the river, it might not come up as the news.
Speaker 2: So 99% of the time when you read about the
Speaker 2: news behaviors that are quite negative only happen.
Speaker 2: Maybe less than 5% actually underground
Speaker 1: Because of those 5% not so pleasant encounters and traumatic
Speaker 1: experiences that some people have had when they come into
Speaker 1: contact with animals, that's why people maybe tend to stay
Speaker 1: away to avoid them or because out of fear or
Speaker 1: maybe because they just want to give them space. What's
Speaker 1: the most common misconceptions people have,
Speaker 2: if it's got to do with the monkeys in Singapore,
Speaker 2: one of the misconceptions would be that the monkeys don't
Speaker 2: have enough food in the forest, which is why they're
Speaker 2: coming to my home to get food. The monkeys have
Speaker 2: sufficient food in the forest and the food that they
Speaker 2: eat would be plants. They could also take in small
Speaker 2: animals like desserts, bird eggs for example, but because the
Speaker 2: food that humans eat full of high calories and
Speaker 2: energy content, that if they were to take those food items,
Speaker 2: they would get their calorie intake for the day with
Speaker 2: just a short amount of time. So if we were
Speaker 2: to leave food out there unattended or trash bins that
Speaker 2: are not closed properly, then the animals would stay and
Speaker 2: get those
Speaker 1: food other than those misconceptions, then what do you see
Speaker 1: as the biggest barrier to encourage more people to coexist
Speaker 1: with nature and animals?
Speaker 2: We want to be close to nature, whether it's the
Speaker 2: clean air or just the calming effect of nature, but
Speaker 2: people might not understand that nature contains different aspects, it's
Speaker 2: not just the beautiful butterflies or the chopping birds,
Speaker 2: that sounds really pleasant into your years, but there could
Speaker 2: be wild chickens, there, there could be crows, wild pigs
Speaker 2: and snakes as well. So some people might be selective
Speaker 2: about the kind of nature that they want, but if
Speaker 2: we are selective then ecosystem will not be intact and thrive,
Speaker 1: let's say
Speaker 1: we have an encounter with a monkey either in the
Speaker 1: park or comes through the window or something like that,
Speaker 1: what should or shouldn't we do
Speaker 2: firstly if say we are out in the nature areas
Speaker 2: and you see monkeys most of the time they won't
Speaker 2: be bothering you if you don't bother them. So if
Speaker 2: you keep a safe distance you walk away, continue on
Speaker 2: your path will be fine. But if the monkeys are
Speaker 2: in your path you have to see whether there's another
Speaker 2: route that you can take all the money to wait
Speaker 2: for them to disperse. But
Speaker 2: if you're in a rush, what you can do is
Speaker 2: to make some sounds to show them that you are
Speaker 2: there to alert them so that you're not actually surprising them.
Speaker 2: When you're walking close, you can clap your hands just
Speaker 2: in the motion that it's more consistent just to announce
Speaker 2: your presence. I'm here, you clap and also you need
Speaker 2: to watch where the babies are because when they're infants
Speaker 2: of course the adults will be more protective. So you
Speaker 2: can always try to think in terms of the monkey's
Speaker 2: paw
Speaker 2: point of view, just like humans, you have your babys
Speaker 2: or your little ones, you want to be protective of them.
Speaker 2: So be aware of where the little ones are and
Speaker 2: don't walk too close to them when you clap usually
Speaker 2: dispersed from you and just to make sure you don't
Speaker 2: bring any plastic bags or 100 plus coke, you know,
Speaker 2: walking in the jungle keep in your bag and once
Speaker 2: you're away from the animals, then you can maybe take,
Speaker 1: take your item that's very meaningful to you car keys
Speaker 1: or handphone.
Speaker 1: Do you chase after them? Do you wait for them
Speaker 1: to return it to you? Is there a way
Speaker 2: in general? If you take your food items, you can
Speaker 2: forget about it just by another. I don't need to
Speaker 2: take it back. Even if you take it back, I
Speaker 2: don't want to consume anyway. If it's non food related,
Speaker 2: like your car keys, phone or your wallet, they might
Speaker 2: take it and bring it up to a tree,
Speaker 2: wait for them to drop
Speaker 1: the items. They
Speaker 2: might be doing a bit of your wallet but they
Speaker 2: won't be eating it. So once you know that it's
Speaker 2: not for items they would drop. So just wait patiently.
Speaker 2: They would know that it's not food, but you might
Speaker 2: have to just buy a new Orleans eventually wants to
Speaker 2: get back to your own.
Speaker 1: Those are great tips. What other efforts can we make
Speaker 1: in preserving wildlife, protecting endangered animals because personally I thought
Speaker 1: the ecological bridge that helps animals safely get from one
Speaker 1: place to another. I thought that was a brilliant idea.
Speaker 1: I
Speaker 2: think the example you gave like the equal link is
Speaker 2: a good way to connect
Speaker 2: forests that have been separated or fragmented. But before we
Speaker 2: get there to build a bridge to reconnect, it would
Speaker 2: be good if we can retain existing forests already to
Speaker 2: prevent cutting through forests and then you have to come
Speaker 2: in to build something to reconnect of course in Singapore
Speaker 2: in such a small area where we have to continue
Speaker 2: to develop,
Speaker 2: we can't stop clearing forests but we can do it
Speaker 2: in a more, I would say structured way that has
Speaker 2: more plans mitigations in it such that we can minimize
Speaker 2: impacts to wildlife and environment as much as possible. So
Speaker 2: having a good understanding of what's out there doing research
Speaker 2: before the development. There are also other things that individuals
Speaker 2: can do. For example when you're
Speaker 2: driving near nature areas, if you can just drive slowly,
Speaker 2: be more aware because those animals would be running onto
Speaker 2: the road sometimes in order to get to another forest
Speaker 2: patch or you can also spend time to volunteer with
Speaker 2: organizations to go out there to collect information to provide
Speaker 2: to national agencies in order to use those information to
Speaker 2: protect species.
Speaker 1: And then how do you then envision the future of
Speaker 1: monkeys in Singapore?
Speaker 2: I'm hoping that when I talk to people, when people
Speaker 2: talk to me about monkeys, the adjectives that they use
Speaker 2: will not always be naughty, mischievous, cheeky and aggressive, but
Speaker 2: coming more from the point of view of appreciating our
Speaker 2: native biodiversity, it could be that they're cute. I'm biased,
Speaker 2: they could be interesting, they can be really playful, they
Speaker 2: can be peaceful. So rather than
Speaker 2: all the negative terms, it would be good if you
Speaker 2: could see the other side of the animals as well.
Speaker 2: So I'm just hoping that not just for monkeys but
Speaker 2: for native wildlife in Singapore, that might not be typically charismatic.
Speaker 2: They could get a fair share of love from singaporeans
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: Andy thank you so much. It's been a pleasure talking
Speaker 1: to you. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Well thanks to my guest Andy Yang and thanks to
Speaker 1: all of you for tuning in. We hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: this episode, but do remember to subscribe and like this podcast.
Speaker 1: So you know when a new episode drops, you can
Speaker 1: find Ciena's climate and sustainability coverage online at sienna dot asia.
Speaker 1: The team behind this podcast is Joanne, chan, Jacqueline chan
Speaker 1: Danieli and Christina robert and I'm julie you signing off.