City Slickers

With the help of Singapore’s residents, smooth-coated otters have returned to the heart of the city. Katie Stacey went to find out how they were enticed back.

- Katie Stacey

Flying over Singapore, nothing was visible through the unrelenting rain. As our aircraft skidded into Changi Airport amid clouds of spray, photographer Luke Massey and I began to wonder if visiting the ‘gateway to South-east Asia’ in monsoon season had been a mistake. Unlike most people landing that day, we were not here to catch a connecting flight to more far-flung destinations. Instead we were in search of some of the cultural melting pot’s wild residents.

BBC One’s Planet Earth II included breathtaking footage of our charismatic target species: smooth-coated otters. The species in this island city state had already featured in David Attenborough’s Wild City, had their own National Geographic show, Otter Town, and later this year will romp through a Charlie Hamilton-James film for Natural World on BBC Two. These most urban of otters are no longer just local celebrities but global stars.

Having dumped our water-logged luggage, we set off in search of our quarry, heading straight to the swollen waters running through the city centre. Immediately we were struck by the size of the otters’ territory. Spotting these mammals, which have turned downtown Singapore into their playground, might be harder than we’d anticipated…

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