At least 11 monkeys seen gathering & eating bananas around Woodlands HDB void deck

UPDATE on Aug. 21 at 5:05pm: This article was updated with comments from Acres.

At least 11 long-tailed macaques were seen gathering at a Housing & Development Board (HDB) void deck in Woodlands after appearing to have been fed with fruits.

Snacking

A 15-second clip of the macaque troop was posted to Facebook group Singapore Incidents.

In it, around eight macaques were seen around a void deck.

Some of the macaques were munching on food.

What looked to be fruits were also seen strewn on the floor around the macaques.

Banana tossed towards them

At one point, a banana was tossed from off-camera towards the troop, landing between two of the macaques.

It made one macaque turn its head, but not enough to distract it entirely from the snack it already had at hand.

More macaques

The video then cut to a woman filming herself with three more macaques nearby.

Two of the macaques were also seen munching on food.

The Facebook post caption suggested that the incident took place in Woodlands, and the video appears to possibly be filmed in the vicinity of Block 874 along Woodlands Street 82, near Woodlands North Plaza.

Some commenters under the Facebook post pointed out that the macaques gathered there as they were being fed by someone.

Don't feed macaques

When encountering macaques, you should:

• Keep plastic bags out of the sight of macaques when spotted. Macaques have associated plastic bags with the presence of food and will try to snatch them when they see them.
• Manage your garbage by securing bins with bungee cords to make food less accessible.
• Never feed the monkey.

According to the National Parks Board (NParks) website, when macaques get used to being fed, they reduce their natural inclination to forage in the forest.

NParks has employed measures to manage macaques in residential areas, including sterilisation.

Recently, in Punggol, where macaques have been a common sight at HDBs, NParks officers used water gel bead blasters to guide macaques away from residential areas and back towards forested areas.

Long-term population control measures are also being carried out for macaque populations at the nearby Coney Island Park.

The agency is also enhancing the habitat at Coney Island Park by planting more native fruit-bearing trees, which are natural food sources for the monkeys.

Proper enforcement needed: Acres

Speaking about the incident, Acres' CEO Kalai Vanan pointed out that the forested areas bounded by Woodlands Avenue 9 and Admiralty Road West have experienced a drastic loss of forest cover in the past decade.

The loss of forest cover is observable on Google Earth satellite images.

"As seen in the video, members of the public have been feeding macaques, which unfortunately encourages the animals to venture into nearby HDB estates. This creates unnecessary conflict and puts both wildlife and people at risk," Kalai said.

"We strongly urge that proper enforcement be carried out to penalize and deter feeders. ACRES would like to remind the public that feeding wildlife is illegal in Singapore," he added.

Top image via Singapore Incidents / Facebook