MS Features: The tour guide who can bring you around local forests and tide pools
26-year-old Noelle Ong spends her May weekend afternoons at a table laden with animal bones and preserved remains, all picked up from Singapore’s shores.
Armed with a wealth of knowledge and a keen attitude, the ecologist gives a hands-on lesson about local marine wildlife to the curious participants in her workshop.
But Noelle isn’t content with merely having participants run their fingers down the rigid carapace of a horseshoe crab.
Singapore, with all its rapid urbanisation, still retains remnants of its historical connection with the sea — no matter how fleeting.
That unique relationship linking people with nature is what she studies and hopes to teach.
Love of nature began as a child
“I enjoy seeing the connections between humans, wildlife, and everything in-between,” Noelle told MS News.
Her passion for ecology began as a child. She remembered being especially interested in aquariums, and keeping several small fishes as pets.
Noelle’s interest in nature would only grow in her teen years.
While others her age may have a different idea of celebrating the end of their GCE A-Level examinations, she started looking into maintaining a planted tank, which creates a small self-sustaining ecosystem.
Image courtesy of The Untamed Paths
Even though she had much to learn — such as how much of each part of the tank was needed — this small project served an important learning point.
It allowed her to better understand the larger ecosystem and how everything affects each other.
It’s a very complex thing to think about, but also it’s something that is very underappreciated.
Noelle obtained a Bachelor’s in Business and Environmental Science and later joined The Untamed Paths as an ecologist in 2022.
Ecologist emphasises educational importance of outdoor wildlife tours
The Untamed Paths is an organisation of wildlife enthusiasts which promotes human-wildlife coexistence by holding outdoor guided sessions.
Image courtesy of The Untamed Paths
Apart from hosting walks along Singapore’s coast during low tide and in nature parks, they also offer nighttime explorations, birdwatching sessions, and even overseas expeditions.
“You can only learn so much in an indoor space,” Noelle explained.
If you only see things through the lenses of other people, you won’t appreciate what we have as much.
Getting out in nature and seeing wildlife with their own eyes allows people to build a stronger connection with local creatures that we often take for granted.
Image courtesy of The Untamed Paths
You can also use all your senses when outdoors, which Noelle said improved learning and information retention.
Diverse local wildlife spotted in educational outdoor tours
“One of the most obvious misconceptions is that Singapore has no wildlife,” Noelle told MS News.
The tiny island’s easily-accessible nature parks are teeming with unbelievably diverse plants and animals, which Noelle and the tours’ participants get to see and hear in all their glory.
On one lucky intertidal walk, Noelle came across a butterfly ray gracefully swimming in the local shallows.
Source: Dennis Chan
She excitedly told MS News that rays were one of her favourite kinds of animals, and that these were rarely seen in Singapore’s waters.
Other times, she got up close with a rare pangolin or a huge sea snail.
Image courtesy of The Untamed Paths
Developed scientific illustration skills due to dyslexia
The ecologist shared a story during one of The Untamed Paths’ overseas trips to Malaysia.
For just a moment, Noelle caught sight of the elusive linsang, a small cat-like mammal so rarely spotted that half of their images online are of taxidermies.
“It kept me up all night,” she said, as she was unable to identify what animal it was.
She eventually drew an illustration, and the group of wildlife enthusiasts managed to narrow it down to a linsang.
Source: Ecology Asia
Noelle actually does scientific illustrations on the side, a skill she developed due to learning difficulties from dyslexia in her youth.
Drawing allowed her to understand concepts visually, and became an important tool for breaking down complex concepts into more layman’s terms when educating others.
Image courtesy of Noelle Ong
26-year-old ends up learning from people during wildlife tours
The Untamed Paths’ outdoor tours gave Noelle the opportunity to passionately educate people about Singapore’s wildlife.
But through her years on the job teaching others, she also constantly found herself as the learner.
When she first started, Noelle found it quite challenging trying to educate people from all walks of life.
“You need to remember that not everyone is like you, not everyone will find this exciting the first time,” she said.
Someone older would appreciate a slower-paced, knowledge-intensive tour, while children need simpler explanations without the scientific jargon she is used to.
Image courtesy of The Untamed Paths
To get around barriers in communication, Noelle had to learn the different names in other languages for each animal.
I’ve learned a lot, actually, down to the kind of translations that people use.
A nudibranch isn’t just a nudibranch, for example. It’s known as hǎi tù (海兔/’Sea Rabbit’) in Mandarin, but also as hǎi kuò yú (海蛞蝓/’Sea Slug’).
Source: Bernard Picton on Wikimedia Commons
It’s currently a personal goal of hers to connect more effectively with Chinese-speaking participants.
According to her, older Chinese people in her intertidal tours tend to view the wildlife through the lens of food.
As a result, she wants to be able to better convey the message that they are creatures with feelings and need protection.
It is perhaps fitting that the ecologist fascinated by the human-wildlife connection would end up learning from both humans and wildlife on these educational tours.
Members of public urged to get outdoors and be curious
Educating the public will only become more important as Singapore’s rapidly growing urban jungles increasingly encroaches on its wildlife.
Many in Singapore fear animals in urban spaces as dangerous, which Noelle dismissed as inaccurate.
“We kind of think ‘animals and people need to be separate all the time’,” she said. “I think we should start to build some tolerance towards nature.”
Source: noelle.owl on Instagram
As for those interested in the field, she urged them to get outdoors and start being curious about anything they come across.
She also told them to take photos frequently and go on guided tours to get the proper experience.
Noelle is currently holding an interactive indoor workshop — Stories from the Shore: Artefacts of Singapore’s Coastal Past — as part of Singapore HeritageFest (SHF) 2026.
The programme, which is SG Culture Pass eligible, will be held on the remaining Saturdays and Sundays of May, from 2pm to 3.30pm at 81 Tagore Lane, #04-07B.
Interested members of the public who wish to learn more about Singapore’s coastal wildlife and cultural heritage can register online now.
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Featured images courtesy of The Untamed Paths.
