Deer dies, motorcyclist injured in Mandai road accident

SINGAPORE — A deer died after a motorcyclist collided with it on Mandai Road on Tuesday (Dec 18) evening.

The motorcyclist sustained minor injuries.

Photos shared on the Nature Society Singapore's (NSS) Facebook group showed the deer lying in the middle of two lanes, while a motorcyclist sat on the kerb by the roadside with his bike on the ground.

The police said that they were alerted to the accident at 8.10pm.

According to a photo timestamp on social media, the carcass of the deer was removed at 9.23pm.

The incident is the third reported roadkill case involving wild deer this year.

In June, a sambar deer was also euthanised after it was involved in an accident along the Bukit Timah Expressway.

The Mandai area, where construction work to build new attractions is ongoing, has seen a number of roadkill incidents. Earlier this year, a critically endangered Sunda pangolin, leopard cat and sambar deer died in road accidents, which led to nature enthusiasts calling for more preventive measures to be undertaken by project developer Mandai Park Development.

In a position paper published in October, the NSS cited the number of roadkills in the area and called for more land to be set aside as a refuge for wildlife at the future Tengah new town.

The NSS said that under the authorities' plan to transform Tengah to be a "forest town", only up to 10 per cent of Tengah's original forest is retained, which means that half of the species there could be wiped out, based on an ecological rule of thumb.

In 2010, NSS' Vertebrate Study Group estimated that there were under 20 sambar deer in Singapore. According to the National Parks Board, the sambar deer were once nowhere to be found in Singapore, and recent populations are likely to be ones that escaped from captivity.