Teen calls for backup after trying to save critically endangered monkey trapped in Yio Chu Kang canal

The last thing teenager Julianne Teo expected when she woke up was to find a critically-endangered monkey, the Raffles' banded langur, trapped in a canal opposite her home. 

The 13-year-old said she had spotted the animal from the window of her home in Yio Chu Kang.

And this juvenile primate appeared to be stressed as it struggled, albeit unsuccessfully to scale the canal's steep walls that Friday (July 8) morning, reported Coconuts Singapore. 

Concerned, the quick-thinking girl grabbed a rope and left it over the side of the 3m deep drainage, hoping that the frightened animal will grab it to escape from that drain.

Unfortunately, the nervous monkey (above) ignored that rope and her well-meaning gesture.

Teo then decided it was better to call for backup, and contacted the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) which immediately rushed to the site.

Kalai Balakrishnan, co-chief executive of Acres, told AsiaOne that the langur was found stranded inside a 3m deep canal.

"Not being able to climb up the smooth wall, it risked dehydration from the sun," said Kalai, adding that a three-person team was activated to surround the animal and net it. 

He said that volunteers used a ladder to climb into the canal and they calmly approached the monkey from different directions so as not to scare it away. 

They eventually rescued the animal with a large net which was transferred into a temporary cage and then released (video below) at a site just outside the canal.

"We did a quick visual health assessment and decided to release the langur outside the canal once we felt it was fine," said Kalai.

He added that based on residents' account, tree pruning activities likely allowed these endangered primates to climb down the canal. However, this poor juvenile probably got stranded after the cuttings were removed.

Teo's mother told Coconuts Singapore that she had seen three langurs, a mother and her two offspring, in the drain the previous day and it is likely one of them was stuck in that drain overnight. 

Kalai said that this is the first time Acres has encountered sightings in that area and since these primates are critically endangered, "it is difficult to sight them in general".

Acres declined to reveal the exact location to safeguard the species.

In Singapore, these primates can be found in forested areas along Upper Thomson Road, including Thomson Nature Park.

Kalai said they seldom get calls to rescue langurs, with less than five of such calls in the past five to seven years.

And unfortunately, most were victims of road accidents, he added.

He advises the public to call the Acres Wildlife rescue hotline at 97837782 to seek advice and to "never attempt to enter places like canals yourself".

The Raffles' banded langurs were named after Sir Stamford Raffles who was believed to be the first to discover these primates as a species new to science while documenting natural history in Singapore in the 1800s.

These black-and-white critters are notoriously hard to spot because of their critically-endangered status with roughly between 40 to 70 found in Singapore over the last 10 years, reported The Straits Times last month.

They also typically inhabit high treetops in tropical rainforests and hardly ever come to the ground, according to government microsite Singapore Infopedia. 

Aside from Singapore, they can also be found in the southern parts of Peninsular Malaysia, such as in Johor and Pahang. Once hunted for food, the main threat to this monkeys' survival today is habitat loss.

On its website, NParks advises Singaporeans to not feed or be alarmed when they encounter a langur or any other wild animals while out in the nature park. 

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aishahm@asiaone.com