Deer found dead along Old Upper Thomson Rd

SINGAPORE: A Sambar deer was found dead along Old Upper Thomson Road on Sunday morning.

While such animals were once thought to be extinct in Singapore, a wildlife activist said there have been more sightings of Sambar deers in recent years.

Eyewitness Wong Ong Kok was doing his daily exercise when he came across the dead animal along Old Upper Thomson Road.

The 63—year—old retiree said: "The head was somewhere around here, the whole body was lying here, sideways, (and) the backside was down here. The length of the animal was about one meter."

The deer appeared to have suffered a broken leg.

He said: "At first, I thought it’s a wide boar — wide boar is a very common animal here. So I thought it was a big, dead wild boar. But when I got closer, it didn’t look like a wild boar. But in fact, it looked like a deer to me. The body looked to be quite fresh; it’s quite fresh because the eyes were still open, and only a bit of live flies resting on the eye and the nose."

Executive director of ACRES, Louis Ng, said: "The deer in the photo is actually a Sambar deer. And these are native to Singapore. Although the zoo also has a population. We’ve responded to some cases already of people knocking down these deer."

ACRES recommends that the Land Transport Authority puts up signs urging motorists to slow down in areas where such wildlife is known to roam.

Executive Director of SPCA Corinne Fong said motorists should call its hotline if they spot an animal in distress so that assistance can be rendered as soon as possible.

This isn’t the first time that a deer has been spotted along the roads of Singapore.

Two years’ ago, Channel NewsAsia reported that a deer rammed into a car along Seletar Expressway. It suffered major injuries and had to be put down.

— CNA/ck