Water gel guns among newer tools NParks uses to manage monkeys in Singapore estates

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 allows 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).

“It’s meant to teach macaques no-go human areas and people the correct ways to act in the presence of macaques,” she said.

The newer estates of northern Punggol close to Coney Island have been a macaque hot spot for a few years, with monkeys even entering homes and damaging cars.

Between late 2024 and early 2025, NParks received around 200 reports relating to macaques in Punggol. Since 2023, several macaques have been sterilised to control their population, and a few were culled as they were deemed aggressive. 

NPark’s How said the beads are not aimed at the macaques, but should there be any “inadvertent contact”, the beads will burst upon impact without significant force.

However, organisations such as JGIS and the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) have some reservations because of animal welfare concerns and fears that members of the public will buy similar water guns to chase away monkeys in their estates.

Primatologist Andie Ang, president of JGIS, stressed that only the authorities can use the water guns, and the general public should not take matters into their own hands.

Acres’ chief executive Kalaivanan Balakrishnan said: “We do not want a situation where the public starts imitating the method and buys their own devices to shoot at the monkeys or uses something else without knowing the method behind it.”

Jabbar cautioned: “The risk of macaques acting back in defence is higher should the gel be aimed at younger macaques, females and geriatric individuals.”

She was also concerned about monkeys and other animals like birds, cats and dogs swallowing the gel beads.

How said personnel who handle wildlife are offered wildlife management training courses to ensure public safety, personnel safety and animal welfare in the course of such activities.

Since long-tailed macaques are intelligent and adaptable creatures, there is also the possibility that they will eventually outsmart the water guns, as with existing monkey-guarding measures.

Jabbar said, “We know how smart the macaques are, so tools and methods need to be reviewed now and then.

“Monkey guarding, for example, is not meant to completely make the macaques disappear. It is meant to teach the community how to live alongside them as peacefully as possible, while macaques are being taught certain boundaries they should not cross.”

Both the organisations and NParks said a suite of measures is needed to avoid human-macaque conflict, and people also have to do their part by not feeding the monkeys and ensuring that bins and rubbish disposal systems in estates are latched shut and monkey-proof.

“If guarding is working, but people continue to not play their part, then the whole process will still fail,” said Ms Jabbar.

How said, “NParks will also continue working with relevant authorities and community leaders on a multi-pronged approach to minimise human sources of food, and expand outreach and engagements to the residents at Punggol on what to do when encountering macaques. Enforcement efforts are also undertaken to deter illegal wildlife feeding activities.”

He added that macaques are dynamic and can move between habitat patches in search of available resources, making them less dependent on a particular site for survival.

“We will continue to study their population long term to understand their movement patterns and habitat use, the findings of which will inform ongoing population-control measures,” he said.

Shabana Begum

The Straits Times

Asia News Network