8 hours ago
Installing grilles, keeping trash covered: Punggol residents find ways to keep nuisance monkeys at bay
Madam Chew Cheow Tee, 72, has yet to move into her new Punggol apartment at block 442B Punggol Point Cove but she has already requested a contractor to install monkey-proof grilles as a precaution.
'I watched videos and the news about monkeys climbing the buildings. I found them very scary and am afraid that monkeys could come in to steal my food if I just leave them on the table, then it would already be too late,' she said.
So prevalent is the wild monkey problem in the Punggol area, that residents like Mdm Chew who have yet to move in are prepping themselves to deal with these creatures.
Meanwhile, residents who are already in the thick of things have started banding together to keep each other updated on monkey business in their neighbourhood.
Over at the blocks at Waterway Sunrise near Punggol Drive, when a resident spots a long-tailed macaque scaling the walls of a block, they take a photo and circulate it with an alert on a Telegram chatgroup.
Neighbours then take relevant preventive measures such as closing their windows or bringing their rubbish bins at their service yards further into their homes to prevent the macaques from entering their properties.
Sales assistant Cindy Tan, 52, who just moved into her new home at the first floor of flats at block 445B at Punggol Point Cove in May however, does not rely on the alerts from the group.
She keeps her windows closed all the time even though it makes the living room hot and stuffy as it is a necessary measure to keep her daughter safe.
'If my husband and I are not around, and if the monkeys come, my special needs daughter will scream and might get hurt. She has problems with her speech and might not know what to do with the monkeys,' she said.
CNA TODAY spoke to 16 residents in the area who have all had nuisance encounters with monkeys, which included eggs stolen from their dining table, oranges plucked from their religious altars and homegrown fruits grabbed off balcony plants.
Needless to say, residents have been left frustrated with having to deal with the mess and inconvenience caused by the macaques.
Food and beverage establishments in the area similarly have not been spared.
At Southwest@Punggol Restaurant and Bar at The Punggol Settlement, staff have had to deal with monkeys not only scaring customers away by snatching their items or food but also with broken tableware and glasses.
Once or twice a week, monkeys break glasses left unattended on the outdoor tables, leaving staff to deal with the shards.
'We need to replace every glass they break. That's why sometimes at night, we use plastic cups because the monkeys broke the glasses in the morning,' said Ms Jaz Delfino, 30, supervisor at the bar.
Ms Delfino added that this comes at a cost to the restaurant and inconveniences the employees who have to clean up the mess.
The National Parks Board (NParks) said that from January to May this year, they received 280 feedback cases related to macaques in Punggol, which is more than twice the number of reports received for the whole of last year.
The feedback they received included include sightings, intrusions into homes and rummaging of rubbish bins.
MINIMISING DAMAGE
To minimise the damage caused by these creatures, more residents are turning to protective barriers.
Window grilles company, Diamond Grille Systems, for example said that requests for their monkey-proof design have increased by three to four times since the start of 2025.
While the company did not give details on how many orders it received, it said it saw particularly large demand from residents at Punggol Point Cove, a new estate, as homeowners started to collect their keys to their completed build-to-order flats from January 2024.
Mr Javen Tan, 44, general manager of Diamond Grille Systems, said: 'Three years ago, our company already forecasted this problem. We knew there were issues at Punggol Northshore, as well as at the Punggol settlement area.
'So at that time, we did research and development at Coney Island to understand the characteristics of monkeys to identify what type of application can physically keep them off.'
The wires of their grilles are vertical instead of horizontal, resembling the design of cages in zoos, which means that there is less chance of the monkeys climbing and hanging off the grilles.
Mr Tan said the wires are also made of a special type of stainless steel, which is strong enough to resist animals trying to bite through the material.
So far, he said, the feedback has been positive and customers have sent him videos of monkeys trying and failing to enter their homes after the grilles prevented their entry.
CULLING EXERCISES, TRAINING TO DEAL WITH MONKEYS
In response to queries by CNA TODAY, Member of Parliament for Punggol GRC Gan Kim Yong, who is also Deputy Prime Minister, said that the town council was working closely with NParks on a series of measures including advisory posters, more frequent estate cleaning and exploring the deployment of more monkey-proof bins.
NParks said that it's also been carrying out a sterilisation programme for the monkeys since 2023.
After sterilisation, the monkeys were released back into Coney Island but those that were deemed too aggressive were culled.
'As native fruit-bearing trees are natural sources of food for the macaques, NParks has carried out habitat enforcement efforts at Coney Island Park by planting more native fruiting species,' said NParks' group director of wildlife management How Choon Beng.
He added that they are also speaking to the Town Council to recommend increasing the frequency of state cleaning and launching monkey-proof bin designs. Monkey-proof bins include those with locks, heavier lids, or step pedals to open the bins.
NParks, he said also, has regular monkey guarding patrols to herd the troop back into forested areas and offer training courses on wildlife management to residents or workers in the area.
Some participants of NParks' monkey guarding training include the campus housekeeping team and food court operators at the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT)'s Punggol Campus.
The training encompasses basic monkey deterrence measures like hitting a stick on the floor so that the loud noise scares the monkeys away on campus and in food courts.
Animal protection charities such as the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres), Jane Goodall Institute Singapore and Our Wildlife Neighbours also help out with public outreach efforts.
On Jun 8, they set up a booth at the Coney Island Bridge, handing out flyers to residents and park goers that explain macaque behaviour and steps they should take when encountering the monkeys.
Acres' chief executive Kalaivanan Balakrishnan said it is 'vital to uphold compassion as a foundational principle', focusing on the humane treatment of animals.
He added that waiting to respond only after 'negative events', such as human-wildlife conflicts, undermines long-term environmental resilience.
WHAT IS THE SITUATION AT OTHER MONKEY HOTSPOTS?
Punggol is not the first area to have been affected by wild monkeys. Over the last decade, other monkey hotspots included Segar Road in Bukit Panjang and areas near the MacRitchie Nature Reserve, such as private estates in Bukit Timah and Upper Thomson Road.
Residents in some of these areas continue to deal with monkeys daily.
Licensed cat breeder Christopher Choy, 39, who lives in Upper Bukit Timah, said that he has encountered troops of macaques during his morning walks and sometimes they raid his backyard trees for fruit.
'My neighbours have complained and put up anti-monkey netting at their windows, fruit trees and ponds to stop them from entering the house. They also set up ultrasonic monkey repellent devices in the backyard to deter them,' said Mr Choy.
A search by CNA TODAY on the e-commerce platform Shopee found advertisements of these devices labelled with promises in bold like 'No monkeys for 100 years!' on sale for about S$16 to S$22.
Member of Parliament for Bukit Panjang SMC, Mr Liang Eng Hwa, who oversaw an incident in 2017 where monkeys were harassing residents at Segar said that he had a town hall to discuss the matter with affected residents then.
Segar Residents' Committee helped to set up a WhatsApp chat group with Mr Liang and the residents to report appearances of the monkey. The issue was then resolved in two to three weeks after the monkeys were captured.
'We wanted to be responsive. And then whenever someone sighted a monkey, Acres would be able to go there quickly,' he said.
He highlighted that Singapore has a couple of housing estates 'right at the doorstep' of nature reserves, which is the case for his ward Bukit Panjang, so it is natural that residents have to learn to coexist with them.
'There will be some of this wildlife that will come out from time to time. Some of them are transient, they come and then they leave. But let's say they stay around, and they start to go into homes, then we alert NParks,' he said.
ONE PERSON'S ACTIONS CAN WRECK HAVOC FOR A WHOLE BLOCK
Dr Andie Ang, who is head of primate conservation and Singapore programmes at Mandai Nature, said feeding wildlife is partly to blame for monkey home invasions and that all it takes is one person to wreak havoc on a whole block.
The primatologist said that if a resident flings rice grains from a window to feed pigeons, for example, other wildlife, including monkeys, would climb towards that unit when they see food coming out.
'It's not just one monkey, but a troop. The alpha might go to the place that throws the food out, but the rest can then explore the neighbouring units.
'That's when the neighbours can complain and say 'I didn't do anything but the monkeys came to my house', not knowing that people around them might be doing things that they shouldn't be doing and so that is collateral damage to the rest,' said Dr Ang.
She also said that rubbish bins that are not monkey-proof are like 'free vending machines' that are always there, consistently providing food and leading to 'unintentional feeding'.
Overall, she said that there is a lack of awareness about the consequences of feeding wildlife. This means that 'a lot of education' needs to be put into place.
She added that when people feed monkeys, they are giving the creatures "extra resources" outside of their natural habitat.
As a result, they reproduce at a faster rate than their environment can support and they also lose their natural fear of humans and start to approach humans more.
She has seen families giving food to crows, pigeons and turtles, which in turn attracts monkeys. She said that parents believe this is a way for their children to interact with wildlife.
'When we talk to some parents about how we shouldn't be feeding, the parents said, 'oh, it's just vegetables, it's natural food, it's not biscuits'. They don't understand that it's not about what you feed, it's the feeding itself.'
