A mynah in Pasir Ris has been spotted with cable tie around its legs.
Its predicament was noticed by a woman named Xin Yi, who posted it to Facebook group STOP Animal Abuse In SG.
Photo via Xin Yi on Facebook
Photo via Xin Yi on Facebook
As a result of the cable tie, the mynah was unable to fly properly, and could only reach short heights.
Xin Yi said in the post that she wanted to remove the cable ties, but could not capture the bird.
She has since reported it to Animal Concerns Research & Education Society (ACRES).
While the mynah was first spotted on Feb 23, Xin Yi told Mothership that she saw it again in the area a few days later.
She also revealed that the incident happened at Pasir Ris Blk 442.
Cable tie could result in slow painful death: ACRES
In response to queries by Mothership, ACRES said that they do get calls about birds with foreign objects stuck on them.
While some of these incident could be the result of the animal roaming in an urban environment, there are also times where it is caused by human cruelty.
In this case, a cable tie could potentially cause the bird to loose blood circulation in its limb, which causes the limb to become necrotic.
Necrosis occurs when most or all of the cells in an organ or tissue die, due to disease, injury, or failure of blood supply.
This will result in a slow and painful death for the bird.
Unfortunately, the birds are usually mobile enough to evade capture, which makes it difficult to remove the foreign objects on them.
You can read the full statement here:
"The ACRES wildlife rescue hotline does get calls about birds stuck with foreign objects on them. This can be a variety of objects from strings, to wires to cable ties among others. Very often, things like hair and strings can get entangled on a birds legs as they roam around in our urban areas and use such objects to build their nests. However, there are times where the foreign objects are caused by human cruelty.
We have heard from people of cases where people catch birds like mynas on purpose and cable tie them. They do this to "teach the birds a lesson" as birds may have been repeatedly venturing into their premises like a coffee shop for example.
This is, however, a act of cruelty, which is illegal.
Unfortunately, in many of these cases, we are not able to get enough evidence and the birds are usually mobile and able to fly and hence we aren't able to catch the bird to remove the foreign objects. A object like a cable tie can cause pain to a bird where it can potentially loose blood circulation in its limb causing the limb to become necrotic which may result in a slow painful death for the bird."
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Top image via Xin Yi on Facebook