December has been quite exciting.
When I first indicated my interest as a field assistant for NUS Honours students with their final year project, I didn’t know what to expect, or if I were up to the task. I only formally knew what I had to do when the undergrads. themselves contacted me through email; after all, the projects they were embarking on were different and the fieldwork itself had varying degrees of demand and intensity. And since I didn’t have any vacation plans, and had nothing substantial enough in my Google calendar to regard as “Important”, I filled in multiple Google forms and signed myself up for a month of fieldwork!
The first undergrad. I tagged along with assisted is currently doing a study on Sus scrofa, the Eurasian wild pig. I’ve seen them only at Chek Jawa. (Excuse the quality, it was really dark and the photo was taken using an iPhone.)
Over the course of 4 sessions (minus 3, because the weather forecast is not exactly accurate), we covered Bukit Batok Hillside Park (more of a recce trip), CCNR (Woodcutter’s trail) and explored the Kent Ridge forest patch (beside Science Park II and along South Buona Vista Road). Basically, fieldwork with Say Lin entails trekking and looking out for field signs that indicate pig presence, and the setting up of camera traps at impacted sites. Though distinctive and identifiable, I tend to confuse pig hoof prints with erosion patterns, and get excited for nothing. *ashamed* This problem can be eliminated rather easily – just see if you can trace the prints, to form a trail… Then again, we went in circles while tracing a pig track at Kent Ridge.
They just disappeared.
Pigs can fly.
Their tracks were probably erased after days of rainfall and buried under heaps of leaf litter. Other signs of pig activity in the vicinity include rooting, digging and mud wallows and mud rubs on trees. They also leave traces of ‘Graffiti’ on trees (Aspiring artists or scent marking behaviour of male wild pigs? You decide!), as Say Lin puts. We also noticed that they tend to hang around streams or areas with rattan palms, like the Elaeiodoxa conferta (along the Woodcutter’s trail) and a few other species. (I’m not familiar with plants >< so uh, I’ll remember take pictures next time!)
Taken at Bukit Batok Hillside Park
So why study the density and distribution of wild pigs? Pigs’ foraging habits can result in potential ecological damage. Their foraging behaviours, such as rooting and digging, can alter water quality (due to increased soil erosion) and patterns of forest succession (by preferentially uprooting dipterocarp saplings for nest-building and encouraging the dispersion of invasives like Koster’s curse, impeding succession from Stage 2 to 3). Apparently, besides Man, they are the greatest vertebrate modifier of natural communities (both vegetation diversity and animals communities)! More
Apart from the only known extant predator – the reticulated python (Python reticulatus), the wild pigs experience virtually little or no predation pressure on mainland Singapore. Given suitable habitat and food availability (they’re opportunists, and have a varied diet – they even chew roots and consume the sap and starches before expelling the masticated balls of woody tissue), it is likely that their population will increase in size in the near future. In light of this, more studies have to be done to address, if not prevent, potential human-wildlife conflicts.
Below are just screenshots of Google Earth street view:
PGP residential - A place we walked through a few times in our muddy gear.
South Buona Vista Road - where we entered/exited the forest patch and where the SBS bus uncle cheated us, only to discover a mountain biking trail & no signs of pig activity. This was also where I confused erosion patterns with pig hoof prints.
The 'sleeping man place' - We entered/exited the forest from here too.
Other wildlife:
We encountered a strange-looking millipede/centipede (Say Lin has a photo of it), Hammerhead flatworm, Branded Imperial, Common Mormon, the usual butterflies and skippers, lots of grasshoppers and katydids, a strange looking caterpillar (black with orange and yellow bits fringing its body - *Edit: It's not a caterpillar, but a beetle larva), earthworms, birds, and swarms of giant soldier termites while bashing trekking through the forest. There are probably a lot more we saw that I didn't mention here. No pictures either, sorry! (We were busy with fieldwork.)
Here's a fungi for you!
During this short stint, I’ve learnt how the camera trap works. :D And how to identify impacted sites. I’ll probably be tagging along for more wild pigs fieldwork in the future if my schedule permits… As for now, I’m looking forward to helping the others with theirs, since I’ve signed up already. Hopefully, I’ll be updating this blog more frequently this month! More stories to tell!
References:
Ditchkoff, S. S., and J. J. Mayer. 2009. Wild pig food habits. Pages 105-143 in J. J. Mayer and I. L. Brisbin, Jr. (eds.) Wild pigs: biology, damage, control techniques, and management. Savannah River National Laboratory, Aiken, SC. (SRNL-RP-2009-00869). https://fp.auburn.edu/sfws/ditchkoff/PDF%20publications/Food%20Habits%20Chapter%20-%20Wild%20Pig%20Book.pdf
West, B. C., Cooper, A. L., and Armstrong, J. B. 2009. Managing wild pigs: A technical guide. Human-Wildlife Interactions Monograph 1: 1–55. http://www.aphis.usda.gov/wildlife_damage/feral_swine/pdfs/managing-feral-pigs.pdf
Yong, D. L., Lee, B. P. Y-H., Ang, A., and Tan, K. H. 2010. The Status on Singapore Island of The Eurasian Wild Pig Sus scofa (Mammalia: Suidae). Nature in Singapore 2010 3: 227-237. http://rmbr.nus.edu.sg/nis/bulletin2010/2010nis227-237.pdf
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*Sun, 25 Dec 2011 12:58:32 +0800
