The term exotic, refers to something that is not native, or is introduced from abroad. For those of you who have heard the song ‘Exotic – Priyanka Chopra ft. Pitbull’, you would probably get an idea of what exotic means. However, when we refer to exotic species here in this blog, it is very different from an Indian girl in a foreign country. Unlike Humans, who frequently travel abroad, animals and plants play a large role in the ecosystem they come from. A balanced ecosystem for example, will have a certain number of predators to keep the population of it’s prey in check. Introducing a new predator into this equation will mess up the balance, surfacing problems such as competition for the original predator or endangering the life of the native prey. That is why the issue of exotic species is not something that can be left unmanaged.

Singapore, being a country that relies heavily on imports and exports, have many exotic species in the country. Large Influxes of Alien species began while Singapore was a British Colony. It was then which foreigners from all over the world came to Singapore with animals or commercial crops, hoping to trade and sell. Right now, more than 11% (19 species) of birds in Singapore are originally ‘aliens’ (Lim, 1999).