Georeferencing Sunda pangolin Manis javanica records in Singapore


MUHAMMAD KHAIRU L DIN AZI Z 1,ANTHONY O’DEMP S EY 1,BEE CHOO NG 1 KALA I VANAN B ALAKRISHNAN2 ,SONJA L UZ 3,CHARL ENE YEONG3 SHAR O N CHAN 4 and MARCUS A. H. CHUA* 1 , 5 , 6


Abstract In Singapore, the Critically Endangered Sunda pangolin Manis javanica is threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation, and road traffic collisions. To mitigate these threats, an understanding of its spatiotemporal distri- bution is needed, as identified in the National Conservation Strategy and Action Plan for the species. However, Sunda pangolin occurrence data are held in multiple separate data- bases, are typically collected using non-standardized meth- ods, and often lack accurate location details. To compile a complete georeferenced database of Sunda pangolin records in Singapore, we consolidated occurrence data from hetero- geneous databases and mainstream and social media, and converted locality descriptions into geographical coordi- nates. We demonstrate the use of this database to analyse data on rescued pangolins and those killed on roads, to aid conservation efforts in Singapore, and describe other po- tential applications. We georeferenced 482 records of pan- golin sightings, rescues and roadkill for 1996–2021, finding an increase in all three over the study period. Roadkill and rescues occurred mostly in central and western Singapore, close to forested areas, and were predominantly of subadults and adult males. The data can be used to inform threat mitigation strategies, post-rescue release plans and further research. The database has already been used in practice, contributing to environmental impact assessments and con- servation recommendations. Overall, this georeferenced database demonstrates the value of citizen science and collat- ing wildlife data frommultiple sources, and themethods used can be applied to other taxa to aid conservation strategies.


Keywords Citizen science, conservation, georeferencing, Manis javanica, roadkill, sightings, Singapore, Sunda pangolin, wildlife rescue


The supplementary material for this article is available at doi.org/10.1017/S0030605324000206


*Corresponding author, marcuschua@nus.edu.sg 1Nature Society Singapore, Singapore 2Animal Concerns Research and Education Society, Singapore 3Mandai Nature, Singapore 4National Parks Board, Singapore 5Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum, National University of Singapore,


Singapore 6George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA


Received 13 April 2023. Revision requested 6 September 2023. Accepted 29 January 2024. First published online 16 September 2024.


forest and shrubland habitat. It is categorized as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List and in the Singapore Red Data Book (Lim et al., 2008; Challender et al., 2019). In the highly urbanized island city-state of Singapore, the species appears to be mostly confined to forested nature re- serves, nature parks, the western catchment area and the off- shore islands of Ubin and Tekong (Teo & Rajathurai, 1997; Baker & Lim, 2012; Lim et al., 2016). Hunting is the primary threat across most of its range in Southeast Asia, but in Singapore the major threats are habitat loss and fragmenta- tion, and collisions with vehicles (Lee et al., 2018; Challender et al., 2019). The urban ecology of the Sunda pangolin in Singapore is poorly understood, as studies have focused pri- marily on its natural habitats (Teo&Rajathurai, 1997; Lim& Ng, 2008; Nash, 2018; Teo & Thomas, 2019). To address the conservation needs of the species in Singapore, the Singapore Pangolin Working Group was es- tablished in 2014, bringing together public and private stakeholders involved in pangolin research and conserva- tion (Nash et al., 2020). In 2018, the Group published the Sunda Pangolin National Conservation Strategy and Action Plan (Lee et al., 2018), setting out five key goals. Goal 1 of the Action Plan is to gather and share information on the species’ status, ecology, biology and behaviour, including improving knowledge of its urban ecology. Understanding the distribution of Sunda pangolins within the city and analysing roadkill and rescue locations by mapping occurrence data will contribute towards this goal. Georeferenced wildlife data are valuable for generating distribution maps of rare species and for examining the ecological implications of wildlife mortality (Steyaert et al., 2016; Thinley et al., 2019). Analysing pangolin occurrence data in Singapore can be challenging because the data are typically collected opportunistically by various stakeholders in a non-standardized manner. These data include records of live sightings, injured pangolins that have been rescued, and pangolins that have been killed in collisions with vehicles, but they often lack geographical coordinates. Difficulties in interpreting locality descriptions could there- fore limit attempts to use these data to guide conserva- tion strategies. Here we consolidate available Sunda pangolin occur- rence data from Singapore Pangolin Working Group


T


This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited. Oryx, 2025, 59(1), 65–68 © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605324000206


he Sunda pangolin Manis javanica, native to Southeast Asia, is severely threatened by poaching and the loss of


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140