Singapore's government spent some S$800,000 on animal management last year — an amount which includes what they spent on culling animals.

According to Channel NewsAsia, Senior Minister of State for National Development Desmond Lee said in Parliament on Tuesday that the Agri-food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) spent that sum, disclosing the figures in response to a question about the government's expenditure on culling, posed by Nee Soon MP and wildlife society ACRES founder Louis Ng.

Lee reportedly added that the culling of animals constitutes only a “very small part” of the overall work of AVA, saying that it does not track how much it spent on culling specifically.

This exchange follows the controversy surrounding the AVA's decision to cull 24 free-ranging chickens in Sin Ming in early February.

According to The Straits Times, when Ng asked if the spending on culling will go up over the next three years, Lee said that he was unable to project that as he said "it depends on the risks and on whether the human-animal conflicts rise or fall and whether public education helps mitigate that along with the animal welfare groups' efforts in working with us to re-home animals."

He cited Project SOUND and Jurong Island Project, which we've written about recently, to illustrate that the agency will continue its studies on science-based approaches to animal management and work with animal welfare groups.

Lee, like Minister of State Koh Poh Koon previously, reiterated that culling will be used as a last resort.

He also urged the community to practise responsible pet ownership and refrain from feeding strays.

Related articles:

S’pore stray dog welfare groups show it *is* possible to manage animal populations without culling

Here are 3 problems with what Koh Poh Koon said about AVA’s culling of the Sin Ming chickens

Top photo collage from Project SOUND Facebook and screenshot of Wild City documentary

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