Stick to Your Runs!

It is most often that I get into contact with the ever increasing macaque population while running in parks, connectors or along less human trafficked roads.

While most times, I just needed to be a little more prudent not to go too near to the babies, avoid eye contact and pick up pace to run ahead. Occasionally there might be a few Alphas that were really very wary and cautious to protect their families and young, that they literally tried to grab and chase after you!

The Mandai Road gang is one such gang. 

And it is unavoidable on my route to the Upper Peirce Reservoir.

So I have noticed this gang of macaques for some time. They are almost certainly there, whenever I run down Mandai Road after crossing the traffic emerging from the Ulu Sembawang Park Connector. Usually I just continue running without eye contact and fussing about them. But it was on one encounter that I got confronted by the seemingly alpha male even when I just "ran my own business". It was then I realised this is one not to be trifled with, and I needed to be more vigilant.

When the alpha wasn't there, the other members of the troop would just cry out as if in distress, when I passed them by.

I needed to have a plan to protect myself.

I learnt from the Hub that using a stick as a defensive weapon could help. Not to use the stick to attack the macaques of course. I learnt that just by swaying the stick in your hand gently in a left to right motion helps to keep the macaques away. They would just move away or leap off, and when at a safer distance from them, you could just discard the stick along the side of the path - usually from the grass patch from where it was taken a distance away much earlier on.

The stick that I used

So, whenever I know I am approaching the hangout area of this troop of macaques, I would first select a fallen-off branch on the roadside, that is of suitable length, durability and making sure there are no ants nor insects on it. I would hold it as I run, and when I do see the troop, gently sway it left and right as a defensive motion. 

On this particular day, the alpha was there. He saw me approach and again attempted to snare at and approach me. But when the stick gently swayed to his direction, he too had to flee away.

Took the pictures of the "gang" only after running from them at a safer distance

It is by no means a way to taunt nor to attempt to attack and injure these animals - nor any animal we encounter. I do appreciate having wildlife aound us very much. The best practice is to admire them from a distance, appreciate their pressence and wild way of life and do not interact with them especially not feeding them. I do have a lot of personal encounters with park-goers or the public who instead tried to "unwild" these lives, and hence creating ripples of negative consequences through these actions. This is another topic of course and I shall not dive into it and turn it into a lecture here! 😜

Sometimes the best way to co-exist with wildlife peacefully is to still have some form of barrier - and in this case a way of defending yourself so that no "fights" happen and each group can still survive in its own way of life.