10 Apr (Sat): Talk on "Native Trees of Pulau Ubin"

Pulau Ubin is home to some amazing trees, including huge survivors that have attained Heritage Tree status. It is thus a special treat to learn more about them from Ali Ibrahim!

Frustrated about wildlife trade? Do something about it

Baby sharks are being sold at Sheng Siong supermarket! This according to a media report today.
Another recent media article reports Singapore is a global hub for wildlife trafficking. ACRES investigations also recently showed tiger parts being widely sold in Singapore. Singaporeans are so oblivious that a major publication recently featured a tiger skin on their cover.

Have you felt frustrated about these issues? What can an ordinary person do about wildlife trade in Singapore?

Seringat-Kias in the mizzle

In a miserable drizzle (mizzle), a small team went to check out the artificial shores of Seringat-Kias.
Even though the tide is not very low, some stretches of the huge C-shaped 1km long artificial lagoon is exposed. Here, patches of seagrasses have settled and some signs of marine life can be encountered.

Special sea stars breeding at Cyrene Reef?

Sean shared on his new blog a tiny Pentaceraster sea star that he and Jocelyne found at Cyrene Reef during a TeamSeagrass monitoring session. From his description, it seems to be about 5cm wide. That's really small!
Wow, this is our first sighting of a baby Pentaceraster! Does this mean that there is a breeding population of these sea stars at Cyrene Reef?!

Why is this exciting?

Back to Beting Bemban Besar

It's dawn and we're back on Beting Bemban Besar! We're a little early and only a tiny sliver of the huge submerged reef is above water!
Where is Beting Bemban Besar?

Special sea anemones on Beting Bemban Besar

For the first time, I saw this elusive sea anemone! For a while, we were not sure if this sea anemone still existed on our shores. Until Marcus saw one at Pulau Semakau.
A review of some photos taken by others at Semakau revealed earlier sightings too. But this is my first time seeing it, and our first sighting outside of Pulau Semakau.

The Lion Finch: baby biter goes extinct

Once found throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa, the last two individuals of this charismatic species of bird were last seen in September 2009, in a Frangipani tree in Mrs Okeke’s back garden on the edge of Lake Naivasha, Kenya.
The Lion Finch, Leo fringilla, is listed as ‘Extinct in the Wild’ on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Once an extremely valuable commodity in the pet trade, the Lion Finch faced severe persecution following the discovery that its fiery temperament led to the loss of numerous infant extremeties.

Cyrene Reef with TeamSeagrass

Another early morning trip, this time to Cyrene Reefs with TeamSeagrass!
Cyrene is a submerged reef surrounded on three sides: by the heavy industries on Jurong Island (in photo above), the huge refineries of Pulau Bukom, and our world-class container terminals. Despite this, it has one of the best seagrass meadows in Singapore!

Checking up on Labrador

It's the first of the morning low tides for the year, and I thought I should see how our last mainland reef is doing.
And how nice to see life is still hanging on at this much beleaguered shore. There were lots of little Copperband butterfly fishes (Chelmon rostratus)!