This stork has various natural predators. In South Sumatra, monitor lizards, especially "Varanus salvator", have been reported to predate milky stork eggs and juveniles. Crocodiles "Crocodilus porosus" also sometimes eat young milky storks. In Matang Mangrove Forest in Malaysia, brahminy kites, water monitor lizards and common palm civets "Paradoxurus hermaphroditus" are potential (nest) predators and probably contribute to low survival here. In captivity in Malaysia, the milky stork may also be potentially threatened by the crab-eating macaque ("Macaca fascicularis"), which is a potential predator of stork eggs and chicks, and whose range has gradually expanded here. This monkey could swim across to nest sites surrounded by water, as they have done for captive grey herons. On Pulau Rambut, potential predators include reticulated python, cat snakes (especially "Boiga dendrophila" and Brahminy kite. White bellied sea eagle "Haliaeetus leucogaster" and monitor lizard are also reported to predate chicks here.