Omni Channel previously shared other videos with the otters seen in the city area, near Gardens By the Bay and Marina Bay. Now at least 90 otters, part of 10 thriving families, live within the island-state, and their population is growing, thanks to rich food sources—such as koi ponds—and lack of predators. With smaller crowds around, otters explore tourist hotspots of Merlion Park & Marina Bay When the crowds are away, the otters will play. Contact us | The 20-pound creatures have also adapted well to urban spaces, denning in concrete bridges and basking on patches of sand between slabs of pavement. Reunited, the family forms a v-formation as they glide across the mirrored lake. Otters likely repopulated Singapore by swimming across the Johor Straits from Malaysia in the 1990s. For instance, while otters generally are known as skilled hunters, Johns and his team have discovered that having pups dramatically lowers the adult Zouk otters’ success rate in hunting, since they have to spend a lot of their time teaching the pups to catch food. In 2016, an otter family suddenly ran across the Singapore Marathon route, and Otter Working Group volunteers rushed to warn the runners of the otters’ presence, as well as also position themselves along the route to prevent the animals and runners from colliding. Additionally, the team has found that to cope with the lack of available land, the otters are changing their behaviour—for instance by living with their parents longer. While most wild otters would leave their family at around two years old, Singapore’s otters will stay with their parents until three or four, as they wait for territory to open up. There, two pups are nestled safely among the muddy tree roots, waiting for their parents to give the all-clear. Local groups are trying to minimize negative interactions between people, pets, and otters. Unfortunately for this family of otters, most of the existing hunting spaces in the Central Watershed - which includes the Singapore River, Kallang River … The Bishan otter family are among the most photographed of the 10 otter groups in Singapore. Sumita Thiagarajan The otters also now have Facebook fan pages, including Ottercity, which was founded by photographer Jeffery Teo. Due to water pollution, habitat loss, and other factors, smooth-coated otters are considered vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The Mandarin Oriental Singapore hotel can be seen in the background as cars and buses pass by. This photograph taken on May 29, 2020 shows a smooth-coated otter next to a canal in Singapore. As the sun rises from behind the baobab trees in the botanic gardens one morning, Johns points to an otter family—the same one commuting along the highway—foraging among the reeds. There are more and more sightings of wild otters in Singapore in recent years. Singapore´s otters, long adored by the city-state´s nature lovers, are popping up in unexpected places during the coronavirus lockdown but their … (Learn more about Singapore’s urban innovations.). Homeowners in the gated-community enclave on the island of Sentosa reported in 2015 that their koi carp ponds had been emptied by otters, and one hotel in the same area lost 85,000 Singaporean dollars’ worth of ornamental fish over eight months, according to local news reports. In Singapore's Marina Bay, an otter dines on a fish. It's a far cry from 50 years ago, when Singapore’s rivers were choked with rotting animal carcasses, garbage, and sewage. | Sumita Thiagarajan | March 18, 2020, 06:23 PM Otters from the Bisham family react to a dog in Bay East Garden. Put together by passionate people for people! After spending the morning fishing, the Bishan family rest ashore for a few hours. Our otters have been in the news recently, venturing beyond t... heir usual haunts with lower human traffic during the circuit breaker. There are two species of otters in SG – smooth-coated otters and Asian small-clawed otters… The Singapore otters’ main cause of death is vehicle strikes, with about five to six animals killed a year, according to Bernard Seah, a member of the Otter Working Group, a coalition of charity workers, government officials, and academics who monitor the otters and carry out awareness programs. “Five years ago, people still knew very little about the otters,” Teo says. For starters, the mammals share the waterways with another apex predator, the water monitor lizard, which preys on otter pups. — AFP pic. March 18, 2020, 06:23 PM, Follow us on Telegram for the latest updates: https://t.me/mothershipsg. Cloud hosting by Vodien. “It’s like the 35-year-old living in their parents’ basement,” Johns quips. Took this picture of otters frolicking on a # jalanjalan at the Singapore Botanic Gardens in March. (Read how hundreds of wild parrots have flocked to this Brazilian city.). They now live all over the island—from the farming area of Kranji in the north to the manicured Singapore Botanic Gardens in the center to the glittering finance district of Marina Bay in the south. Print Edition | Subscribe Topics: They are taking a hit, changing their behaviour when pups are around. Web design by Yu Sheng & Yu Siang. Here, the Bishan family crosses a street in the city center. Perhaps due to recent Covid-19 measures, there wasn't a large crowd that would usually observe the otters, allowing them to wander around more freely. A cute Facebook video showing a family of otters climbing up the steps out of the Singapore River was posted today (Mar. But the rise of the urban otter has caused some conflicts with people.

otters singapore 2020

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