Today, the otters’ movements are closely tracked, with articles and videos gushing about their antics, such as trying to cross the road in the Central Business District, playing in the sand of playgrounds at the National Stadium, or photobombing a marriage proposal. The families of otters are named according to the neighbourhoods they hail from, and when ‘Bishan Dad’ died in 2018, he made headlines in local media.

Singaporeans do not just tolerate the otters. We delight in their presence and demand that space be made for them. The result is that Singapore was hailed by otter expert Dr Nicole Duplaix as an international model for co-existence between otters and humans.

So we have both a contradiction and an inconsistency in wildlife management. The City in a Garden initiative aims to increase wildlife encounters, but we continue to place emphasis on the need to keep humans and animals apart. The exception to this, of course, are the otters.

Some might argue that the otters are easier to accept because they are less dangerous. But the road to accepting them was not smooth sailing. When the otter population first started to increase, there were complaints of otters raiding fish farms and ponds. One hotel in Sentosa reported an $85 000 loss of ornamental fish over eight months. At one point, D’Best Recreation fishing pond in Pasir Ris estimated that they were losing $300-$500 worth of fish almost daily. Furthermore, in 2017, a 5-year-old girl was badly bitten by an otter.

While there have been more python sightings in Singapore, only one case in recent years involved a snake biting a human unprovoked.

To understand the gulf that exists between otters and other forms of wildlife, we need to realise that Singapore’s vision of a ‘City in a Garden’ is not founded on the intrinsic value of the wildlife around us. In an interview with the New York Times, then-head of the National Parks Board Mr. Poon Hong Yuen said that the initiative was meant to make Singapore a more attractive place for talent in the knowledge economy.

Fundamentally, then, wildlife is only appreciated to the extent that it fits the image Singapore wants to project of itself—a clean, green, and safe global city. Otters, with their playful antics that easily go viral online, fit this bill, and so they enjoy the honour of sharing our waterways.

Whether or not an animal is made to ‘belong’ in a space has less to do with its inherent qualities, and more about what value it brings to Singapore’s status as a global hub. Otters can be just as, if not more, dangerous than a python. But because they are universally perceived as being fluffy and adorable, their presence boosts Singapore’s reputation and status.

When an appreciation for wildlife is founded only on its potential economic and symbolic value, the commitment to co-existence is tenuous at best. Take the example of Sin Ming Avenue’s free-roaming chickens. They were filmed as part of Channel News Asia’s documentary Wild City, as experts believed that they were endangered red junglefowl. Yet, in 2017, nearly half of the birds were culled after a spate of complaints about them. Similarly, the rainforest next to the Singapore Zoo in Mandai, despite being home to critically endangered species like the Sunda Pangolin and the Lesser Mousedeer, is in the midst of being redeveloped into an eco-tourism hub.

There have been increasing calls for state agencies to use other measures such as relocating animals, rather than culling. Nevertheless, we cannot continue to depend on the assumption that animals will stay in ‘wild’ places, not when we are actively clearing these spaces. Given the increased pace of development, human-animal conflicts look set to only increase.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.