SINGAPORE - It was past 9pm on a Thursday evening in early September, and photojournalist Mark Cheong and I were crouched on a trail in the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, staring into the thicket with National Parks Board (NParks) staff on a survey of wild animals that prefer the night.

We kept our red torches trained on the lesser mousedeer - red light does not disturb wildlife as much as white light - and watched it graze from some distance away.