A woman's night out in Singapore took an exciting turn after she caught a rare sighting of an endangered species. Taking to TikTok to share her encounter, Sarahmaylow posted on Monday (Aug 14) a video of a Sunda pangolin walking on the pavement near one of the exits of Toa Payoh MRT station. Sunda pangolins are a critically endangered species,.
Critically-endangered Sunda pangolins are native to Singapore and the region.
Globally, they are mainly threatened by illegal wildlife trade. However, roads rather than poachers are the biggest enemy of pangolins in Singapore.
There may be a record number of pangolin roadkills in Singapore this year due to a few possible reasons. However, experts are still optimistic about the future of pangolins in Singapore if we keep up with our conservation efforts.
The author is a journalist for Singapore-based sustainability publication Eco-Business during the week. He is a rescue volunteer for ACRES on weekends.
By Robin Hicks
A particularly large number of them have been killed on Singapore’s roads.
Since its outbreak, the COVID-19 pandemic’s interlinkages with illegal wildlife trade have caught a lot of attention and been touted as a primary cause. Dwelling on the carrier species of coronavirus that have been implicated and the channels of zoonotic spillover, the policies implemented to curb bushmeat consumption with incomplete ramifications to curb illegal wildlife markets are critiqued. The urgent need to address the problem is highlighted, requiring significant enforcement efforts at the local and national level along with transnational cooperation to make them successful. There is a need for alternative coordinated solutions for the COVID-19 vaccine which ironically finds its origin in a wildlife product.