Lessons from Singapore's Sunda Pangolins and Chicago's Coyotes

This paper examines the resilience of the natural environment to the impacts of urbanisation through two specific case studies: Singapore and Chicago, USA and attempts to offer solutions for environmentally sustainable urban development. Urbanisation refers to the process of an area becoming more urban and can be characterised by the migration of people from the surrounding rural areas to concentrate on a single urban area, the shift away from an agrarian economy to an industrialised one as well as the accompanied development of infrastructure and amenities. The term resilience refers to the ability of the system to adapt to and cope with changes and continue to grow (Moberg & Simonsen, 2014). Though resilience of the natural environment can be studied in a variety of aspects, in the context of this paper, resilience of the natural environment will be examined through local species population and how the relevant species’ population may have been affected due to the impacts of urbanisation on their habitats, food sources and threats to their lives. A resilient species will therefore be one whose population is able to thrive off urbanisation while a non-resilient species will suffer significant decline in population till, possibly, naturally irreversible.

Through the analysis of the case studies as well as other literature on environmentally sustainable urban development, this paper will also seek to suggest possible solutions for cities to develop through environmentally sustainable methods.

Background & Significance

Today, more than half of the world’s population live in urban areas and it is projected that by 2030, more than two-thirds of the world’s population will live in urban areas (United Nations, 2018). In addition, this paper acknowledges that natural environments have both intrinsic and instrumental value (Sandler, 2012). The intrinsic value of natural environments refers to value that is accorded to natural environments by natural right. The instrumental value of natural environments is derived in the role that the natural environment plays in the regulation of both the global and local climate, the production of resources for human consumption and the provision of recreational benefits for humans. Therefore, given the macrotrends of urbanisation and the importance of nature both to humans and in its own right, it is imperative that we examine the resilience of the natural environment to urbanisation and explore solutions to environmentally sustainable urban development such that future cities can grow without heavily deteriorating the natural environment.

Compared to other literature on sustainable urban development, this paper places greater emphasis on the environmental dimension. This emphasis is because the other two dimensions, economic and social, tend to have greater priority in policy making due to the fulfilment of political, economic and societal interests (Brundtland et al., 2012). In addition, the natural environment is typically viewed as being a limitation to development and needs to be removed for the city to achieve economic and social sustainability (Basiago, 1999). However, what needs to be understood is that the environment is the larger sphere that encompasses the economic and social functions of the city and that it is therefore necessary to protect the natural environment to ensure even more sustainable economic and social development (Basiago, 1999).

Case Study A: Singapore’s Sunda Pangolins

Singapore has rapidly urbanised into a thriving metropolis over the past 50 years. Such development has caused most of Singapore’s primary forest cover to be removed and replaced either with buildings, transport infrastructure or secondary vegetation. Today, less than 0.2% of primary forest cover remain, compared to approximately 80% in the mid-1800s (Noreen & Webb, 2013). The rapid urbanisation in Singapore has led to a decrease in biodiversity species variety, particularly 34-87% inferred and documented extinctions in various forest wildlife with fewer observed extinctions (Brook, Sodhi, & Ng, 2003).

This paper will focus more specifically on the construction of the Bukit Timah Expressway (BKE) in 1986 and its impacts on the surrounding environment since. The BKE is an 11km long highway and is the focus of this case study as it cuts through one of Singapore’s last regions of primary rainforest – the Central Catchment Area. In doing so, the Central Catchment Area was divided into two pieces of forests that are known today as the Central Catchment Nature Reserve (CCNR) and the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve (BTNR). However, during the construction of the BKE, little was done to evaluate the impacts on the various wildlife living within these forests. As a result, habitats were destroyed, food sources depleted and some animal populations were split and left stranded in the two plots of forest. Many animals who tried to cross the four-lane expressway often ended up as victims of vehicular accidents. This was especially concerning as the CCNR and BTNR were home to some of Singapore’s endangered species such as the critically endangered Sunda Pangolin (Challender et al., 2013). The Sunda Pangolin is a shy anteater that lives in mature forests and plays an important role in controlling the ant and termite population within the reserves as well as in promoting aeration of the soil when feeding (Lim, 2010). However, due to their poor eyesight, slow movements and instinct of curling up into a ball when threatened, Sunda Pangolins are often struck by oncoming vehicles when attempting to cross the BKE to forage for more food (National Parks Board, 2019). From 1994 to 2014, a total of 24 pangolins were killed by oncoming vehicles and in 2016, the pangolin population in Singapore was estimated to be around 100 (Chew & Pazos, 2015; Tan, 2016).

As threats to their survival and habitat increase with urbanisation, the Sunda Pangolins are unable to adapt and cope with these changes. Coupled with a low fecundity rate of 1-2 offspring per year, the Sunda Pangolin population has been dwindling. The endangerment of these creatures was only partially salvaged through the construction of the EcoLink@BKE bridge in 2013 which allowed small animals to cross between CCNR and BTNR safely. However, such efforts have proved to be insufficient, with already 8 pangolin vehicular deaths in the first half of 2019 alone (Lim K. , 2019). The unadaptable nature of the Sunda Pangolins necessitates human intervention and conservation plans for the pangolins have already begun, such as the Sunda Pangolin National Conservation Strategy and Action Plan in 2018 and captive breeding of the pangolins since 2011. However, it is uncertain how successful such intervention will be, with the captive breeding programme only producing 5 pangolin offspring in a span of 6 years and the Conservation Plan slowly taking off. Therefore, given the lack of resilience of such unadaptable species like the Sunda Pangolins, it is important for cities to attempt to prevent a population decrease of such species in the first place instead of solely focusing on the conservation after urbanisation as the cure.

Case Study B: Chicago’s Coyotes

While the Sunda pangolins in Singapore have displayed a lack of resilience to the rapid changes brought about by urbanisation, elsewhere in Chicago, USA, where urbanisation has largely stabilised, the coyotes are slowly making a return to their homeland. Coyotes have been rare in the third most populated city up until the 1980s due to intense hunting of the species in the early 1900s, with poachers killing 6.5 million coyotes in the peak hunting period (Worral, 2016). As a result, coyotes have mostly lived in the forested outskirts of the city. However, they have been making a comeback due to the lack of predators and an abundance of food within the city. The coyote population in Chicago has increased from approximately 25 in 1991 to around 2000 coyotes in 2018 (Gehrt S. D., 2004; Anchor, 2018). Contrary to Singapore’s Sunda Pangolins, Chicago’s coyotes are much more resilient towards urbanisation and, in fact, specific animal species such as coyotes, raccoons, red foxes, have been known to thrive in urban areas due to their high adaptability (Dell'Amore, 2016). The Chicago coyotes, in particular, have been documented navigating vehicular traffic, adopting a nocturnal lifestyle to avoid people and creating dens in the smallest of cracks within urban settlements (Dell'Amore, 2014). These coyotes are known to be misanthropic synanthropes. They are misanthropic in behaviour, largely avoiding humans, and synanthropic in demography, having high population density and possibly reproduction while near humans. The characteristics of misanthropes and synanthropes are further explained in the table below.

The natural introduction of coyotes into the city and their high adaptability to the urban environment exemplifies a high level of resilience of the coyote population to urbanisation.

However, coyotes in Chicago have been perceived as a threat largely due to existing stereotypes of coyotes being feral and having the capacity to harm pets or even a human child as well as publicised cases of coyote attacks. As such, due to pressures and fears from the people, the government has tried to curb the coyote population through lethal removal, which involves the trapping and euthanising of coyotes. However, these methods soon proved to be futile as the coyote population would easily bounce back by breeding at an earlier age and having larger litter sizes (Quirin & Gehrt, 2012). This reproductive capability was a result of many years of evolution in the struggle to survive under intensive hunting in the past (Worral, 2016). The coyote population’s resistance to lethal removal further exemplifies their high level of resilience and suggests that other management strategies need to be crafted. However, given the misanthropic behavioural nature of coyotes, researchers from the Urban Coyote Research Project claim that the urban coyotes do not pose much of a threat to urban dwellers. In fact, instead of being a threat, coyotes could prove to be beneficial to the Chicago human population in curbing the resident rodent population, thus preventing the spread of rodent-borne diseases to humans, as well as deer and Canada goose populations. In addition, these researchers claim that coyotes only become “nuisance” animals when fed by humans thus losing their fear of humans as well as when defensive of their territory (Gehrt & Quirin, 2012).

Therefore, due to the high resilience of the urban coyotes, it is important that cities such as Chicago learn to manage with their new, likely permanent, residents. As human-coyote interaction increases, the Chicago population will also need to be increasingly educated on how to deal with the coyotes such that the coyotes maintain a constant fear of humans and do not become nuisance coyotes.

Conclusion

In the two case studies above, the impacts of urbanisation have varied effects on different species of wildlife depending on the species’ adaptability to urban conditions. The high adaptability of the coyotes has allowed them to thrive in the Chicago metropolitan area while the low adaptability of the Sunda Pangolins to the urban environment has necessitated human intervention in the conservation of the species in Singapore. Yet, in both cases, the effect of urbanisation on the Sunda pangolins and coyotes were mostly unintended, in that they were not considered in the process of urbanisation. As such, these cases shed light on the need to have proper planning and considerations of the natural environment in the urban planning stage, such as through environmental impacts assessments (EIAs) and environmental considerations as priority in planning. This may involve identifying the natural areas that are constraints to development, which are to be protected, as well as areas that are opportunities for development (Basiago, 1999). In doing so, such thorough planning would be able to minimise the impacts of development on important natural environments. Despite the high resilience of coyotes in Chicago, the case study shows that human intervention in the management of the coyote population is still necessary to ensure a harmonious living between the humans and the coyotes.

The case studies of Singapore and Chicago also inform that animal behaviour can be unpredictable when the animals are faced with major changes to their lives and environment. As such, as cities continue to grow, the cities’ governing bodies and people must be prepared to face such challenges of both conservation and management of wildlife where necessary. Therefore, it is important that governments establish environment councils to remind and advise policy makers and planning officials to allow the city to grow in an environmentally sustainable manner. Where possible, such environment councils should act as a collaborator in urban development instead of the current consultant role these councils typically play, thus ensuring greater environmental accountability in urban development.

Ultimately, the two case studies seem to show that harmony between nature and cities is not a natural state. In order to obtain harmony with nature and allow both nature and humans to thrive, we must first learn to see nature as equal, if not more important than us, and understand that this planet does not belong to us.