A Brit Man Was Attacked & Bitten 26 Times By 20 Otters In Singapore Botanic Gardens
"I thought I was going to die," he recounted the horror.
By Sadho Ram — 12 Dec 2021, 03:01 PM — Updated almost 3 years ago
Recently, an elderly British man was attacked by a pack of wild otters while he was taking a morning stroll in the Singapore Botanic Gardens
The attack left him with 26 bites and puncture wounds on his buttocks, legs, and fingers.
According to a Reuters report yesterday, 11 December, Graham George Spencer was on his usual 6 walks in the gardens on 30 November when about 20 otters ambushed him and trampled and bit him.
Recounting the horror, the man, who is a Singapore permanent resident, said that while the whole process lasted for about 10 to 12 seconds, he couldn't move and thought he was going to die.
If they bite my face or my neck, I'm dead.
He managed to escape when his friend ran over to scream at the otters and pulled him away.
It is rare for otters to attack humans unless they feel threatened
The man, who runs a maid agency in Singapore, told media that he thought the otters "mistook" him for a runner who had run past him and had stepped on one of the otters in the dim early morning light.
As he was approaching the Singapore Botanic Gardens' entrance, he spotted about 20 otters crossing a dimly lit path in front of him. He shared that this was the first time he had seen otters in the park.
The animals were moving quietly but "went crazy" after the runner ran towards them, prompting the otters to try and bite the runner, who avoided their attacks, he told The Straits Times.
"All of a sudden, they must have thought I was (the runner)," the English portal quoted him as saying.
"I weighed more than 200 pounds and I couldn't get up without my friend's help, if the otters had attacked a girl or child, they surely could not have survived," Spencer said.
Following the incident, a representative from the Singapore Botanic Garden reportedly told him that the authorities are investigating it
Meanwhile, a Mothership report said that the man claims that the staff at the Botanic Gardens" didn't seem to be interested" initially in his pleas to cordon off the area to prevent future attacks.
He is now urging for authorities to take greater action so that others will not suffer as he has.
"I think what I'm trying to do is get them to be rational and do two things. One is to recognise that there is a problem. You can't just say they're free roaming, they go all over Singapore. That's ridiculous," he said.
"I mean, you know, otters may look sweet, but they don't do anything, they don't do anything positive. They just eat your fish and swim in the lake. And that's what they do. They might look nice to look at but they're not a little puppy that you can stroke, and if a kid tries to do it, they're going to bite them."
Amidst social media scrutiny over the incident, Spencer claims that he is not calling for a culling of the otter population, except that they shouldn't be allowed to roam freely everywhere.
"What I want to do is make sure that there's an area within the lake where they can live happily. We can look at them and be nice to look at them. But I don't have to worry that they're going to set upon me when I'm there. I don't want to kill them. I don't want to harm them. I just want to make sure they're protected and the [human] population is protected," Mothership quoted the man as saying.
