Water gel guns among newer tools being used to manage monkeys in estates

Water guns expelling gel beads are one of the newer tools that the National Parks Board (NParks) has been using to drive monkeys away from residential areas.

- Shabana Begum

This surfaced in recent videos showing contractors shooting long-tailed macaques in an HDB estate in the Punggol hot spot with what looked like toy guns, much to netizens' amusement.

Monkey guarding — the herding of monkeys away from urban areas — is carried out by the authorities and animal welfare organisations to prevent human-macaque conflict.

The use of water guns was adopted in 2023. They are used only by NParks and have been deployed in Punggol since mid-2024.

"The loud noise generated by the device and scattering of the water gel beads also allow the range of guarding to be extended," said Mr How Choon Beng, NParks' group director for wildlife management.

NParks has been using water gel beads as an additional measure to "guide" the monkeys away from residential areas and towards forested areas, "as some macaques have grown accustomed to existing monkey-guarding measures", he said.

Sterilising macaques is among other newer measures the authorities have taken to manage the monkey problem in residential estates.

In existing monkey-guarding measures, the authorities and organisations raise their voices and tap hiking sticks on the ground to drive them away from residential areas as a form of negative reinforcement but without taunting the primates.

But monkey guarding is not just about deterring macaques, said Ms Sabrina Jabbar, who heads the Monkey Guards Programme at the Jane Goodall Institute (Singapore) (JGIS).