It disappeared into the surrounding area after climbing out of the canal.
A poor civet found itself in a real predicament in Alexandra canal along Zion Road on Mar. 2.
Fortunately, after a few hours, it managed to find its way out of the deep canal with the help of Animal Concerns Research and Education Society’s (Acres) wildlife rescue team.
What happened
It was drizzling that day, and the water was moving steadily in the canal.
While the civet can swim, it appeared to be apprehensive and hesitant to move in the video uploaded by Nurliyana A.R. to Facebook group Singapore Wildlife Sightings.
Nurliyana said that her husband spotted this critter that was in need of help, and she called Acres for help.
Rescue fraught with difficulties
Kalai Vanan, Co-CEO of Acres, told Mothership that their wildlife rescue team had received multiple calls on their hotline as well as messages through social media about the civet since 4:45pm.
However due to peak hour traffic and bad weather, the rescue team which included Kalai himself, could only reach the location at about 6:15pm.
The rescue took hours due to “bad weather, situation and the fact that [they] were not allowed by authorities to enter the canal”, Kalai shared.
A natural swimmer and climber, the civet moved to different areas, such as perching atop a white pipe, prior to Acres’ arrival.
Abandoned initial plan, nudged it to climb a ladder
Kalai shared that initially, Acres wanted to capture the animal as they felt it could have suffered injuries or could have been weak.
The civet was estimated to be a young adult.
However, it was difficult to capture the civet.
The skittish animal avoided attempts to capture and even fell into the canal several times.
Understandably, it was a stressful situation for the civet.
With the water moving fast, Acres decided to abandon the plan to capture the civet as there was a risk that the animal may fall into the water and get carried away by the current.
Instead, they gave the civet an avenue to climb out by itself.
Acres placed a ladder on the side of the canal which flanked a green space, to avoid any potential traffic incidents if the civet ran away once it climbed out.
From there, it was a long wait of three hours for the weak civet to climb up the ladder.
Civet climbed up the ladder after three hours
At the start, the weak civet refused to move from the centre of the narrow floating debris trap in the canal.
Torches were shone to disturb the floating platform to nudge the civet to climb up the ladder.
After more than three hours, the civet finally started moving towards the ladder.
As civets are excellent climbers, it naturally took to climbing the ladder and finding its way out.
The civet disappeared into the surrounding area after climbing the ladder.