Wild Singapore Butts Up Against The Modern City

How one animal charity is at the sharp end of Singapore’s transition to a greener future.

- Nick Measures

The call comes through mid-afternoon: “You’re saying a cobra is in your house?” queries Laurie Day, to the person on the other end of the line. “You’re sure it’s a cobra? Ok, tell the kids to stay two metres back, we’re on our way.”

Day and her colleague, Julia Walters, are halfway through their eight-hour day shift as volunteer members of Singapore’s Animal Concerns Research and Education Society’s (Acres) Wildlife Rescue Team. On call 24/7, it’s the Acres hotline you call if you come across an injured squirrel in your garden, find a crow with a broken wing or, in this case, spot an unwanted snake slithering under your sofa.

Within 15 minutes, their black rescue van, adorned with the charity’s distinctive blue monkey logo, pulls up in front of a terrace house close to a patch of forest in the Bukit Timah area. The family who called about the snake can be seen through the large front window, huddled together on the staircase, peering down at something perched atop a red bucket in the centre of the living room.

“It’s an equatorial spitting cobra, a little one,” says Walters, with what sounds like a slight hint of disappointment, as she peers through the glass. Situation reviewed, the pair head to the back of the van, select some metal grabbers and a large plastic container from their collection of boxes, hooks, ladders and nets, before returning to the fray.