On our way to Pulau Ubin, I saw wide swathes of floating scum. Others reported seeing similar scum in the area since 4 Nov. Is it some kind of pollution?
At Chek Jawa, I saw oil spill booms laid out on the boardwalk and small patches of lightly bleaching seagrasses. Alas, the team also came across an abandoned net in the middle of the Chek Jawa lagoon. But otherwise, the seagrass meadows were fine.
I saw some patches of lightly bleaching Spoon seagrasses on both northern and southern Chek Jawa.
The water on the southern side of Chek Jawa facing the Johor River was the colour of teh susu (milk tea). Which is not unexpected given the recent rainfall.
Some booms were laid out on the Chek Jawa boardwalk.
I saw this fish trap in the middle of the Chek Jawa lagoon. It was already disabled.
The rest of the team also saw an abandoned net in the middle of the Chek Jawa lagoon. Estimated to be about 30m long.
The net continues to trap a lot of fishes.
More photos by Rene Ong on
her page.
Despite these pressures, Chek Jawa is still very much alive!
There were a lot of
Garlic bread sea cucumbers of all sizes. Also many
Pink warty sea cucumbers and some
Thorny sea cucumbers. I saw one
Smooth sea cucumber and one
Beige sea cucumber. We came across one
Knobbly sea star, but the rest of the team saw lots more. There were also lots of brittle stars.
It was nice to see many
Cake sand dollars. And their predator, the
Grey bonnet snail, which we saw for the first time on Chek Jawa in
Dec 2016. I also saw one
Tiger moon snail and many many
sand collars. And
Gong gong snails as well as hermit crabs. There were also many
Cerianthids. Seagrasses are also great for egg masses and animals to settle on.
On the Southern sandbar, lots of
Straw tubeworms. But alas, I couldn't find any living
Button snails.
The seagrass meadows were lush. Mostly
Spoon seagrass and
Needle seagrass, with some patches of
Fern seagrass. Closer to the boardwalk,
Smooth ribbon seagrasses are still lush. We saw dugong feeding trails!
There were lots and lots of
Haddon's carpet anemones! In 2007, there was
mass deaths of Haddon's carpet anemones and other animals at Chek Jawa. This is believed to be
due to heavy rainfall as marine life can't cope well with too much freshwater.
The mangroves looked well.
The very rare Critically Endangered
Mentigi (Pemphis acidula) is still there and looking alright. We saw under a fallen tree on our last survey in
Jan 2016.
Thanks to NParks for permission to survey this shore and keep tabs on how it is doing.
Posts by others on this trip
Others on this trip: Faiq, Koh Jie Min.
