Wild boar piglets stranded in drain saved from drowning

Animal lover Yeo Chong Lin is used to rescuing tortoises from the drain next to his bungalow after it rains.

But the 80-year-old resident of Springleaf estate in the Thomson area was shocked to find five wild boar piglets stranded on a ledge in the drain last Saturday - the morning after a heavy downpour.

"If I didn't pick them up, they would have drowned," said the marine company director.

He believes the animals might have come from the nearby Mandai forest and been washed down by the rain.

Using a fishing net to gently push the piglets off the ledge and into another net, Mr Yeo, his wife and their maid rescued all five of them, each barely 30cm in length.

They took the piglets into their 9,000 sq ft bungalow and placed them in a stainless steel cage which Mr Yeo had built for his rabbits.

"I tried to feed them some milk and rice but they did not eat," he said.

"They also squealed very loudly when I tried to hand-feed them."

Worried that they were not eating, Mr Yeo called the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) on Sunday.

In a Facebook post Monday, the SPCA confirmed that a call was received on Sunday morning.

The case was directed to the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres), which specialises in wildlife rescue.

Head of Acres' wildlife rescue team Joseph Lin, 23, identified the animals as four-month-old Eurasian Wild Pigs which are common in Singapore.

They were found to be healthy and released on a wild boar trail in Mandai forest, away from residential areas.

Singapore's wild pig population has grown rapidly over the last few years due to the availability of food sources and few natural predators.

They are most often sighted in forested places like Pulau Ubin and the Central Catchment Area.

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