Although Cyrene lies in the middle of
an industrial triangle, it still has some of Singapore's most amazing shores.
Today, we saw a lot of dugong feeding trails, many Knobbly sea stars, 2 Giant clams and more. It was a relief to see that most of the corals seem to have survived the mass coral bleaching. Kelvin also flew the drone for a more comprehensive view of the reef flat.
The star of Cyrene are
Knobbly sea stars! I was relieved to see about 40 near the beacon similar to what I saw in
Apr 2024, which is about twice the number I saw in the past. The rest of the team also saw clusters on the Eastern end facing Pasir Panjang Container Terminal.
Today, we saw two
Fluted giant clams! Che Cheng spotted a huge one (more than 40cm) that appears to be new to us. Although large, these clams are often hard to see especially during a Sargassum bloom. He also spotted the smaller one (about 30cm) that we had seen before. What a relief to know it looks okay today. I last saw it on our
Jun 2024 survey at peak mass coral bleaching. It it had fallen over and its flesh had white patches. Giant clams also harbour symbiotic algae and can also bleach.
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Photos by Che Cheng Neo.
Link to his album below. |
Today I saw many
dugong feeding trails from our landing point north across the meadows to the south facing Pulau Bukom. In
Jun 2024, I only saw them nearer the meadows facing Pasir Panjang Container Terminals. These trails are formed when dugongs chomp up seagrasses including their roots, leaving a shallow meandering furrow of about equal width and depth. It seems every survey since 2021, we see dugong feeding trails on Cyrene. Yay!
There's never been a lot of hard corals on Cyrene since we first started surveying it. Most of them are boulder shaped and there are some large colonies. In
Jun 2024, we estimate about 50% of the hard corals were impacted by
mass coral bleaching mostly the smaller hard coral colonies were outright bright white bleaching. While larger ones seemed alright.
Today, most of the corals I saw were alright, with only a few pale ones or with small pale patches. Most of the large colonies were alright although some tissue was still dying (greyish) along the upper edges.
Near the beacon and around the eastern tip of Cyrene, there are a lot of large
Leathery soft corals. In
Jun 2024, an estimated 70% of colonies were outright bleaching or showing signs of stress (pale patches), and 'melting' into smaller fragments. Today, I didn't see any bleaching leathery soft corals, although many colonies were 'C-shaped', lost some 'centre' portions of the colony during the bleaching event? Other cnidarians can also bleach, so I looked out for those too. All the sea anemones I saw were alright, as were the
Asparagus flowery soft corals.
It seems our shores are past the peak for mass coral bleaching. According to the
NOAA prediction for the Singapore Strait, the bleaching situation for Singapore is at "Watch" now and we are expected to be in the 'blue' in the months ahead.
There was still good seagrass cover on the Eastern end of Cyrene facing the container terminal. Mostly
Spoon seagrass and other shorter seagrasses.
Tape seagrasses were few and far between, with short leaf blades. The seagrasses I saw were mostly fresh and green and I didn't mat-like epiphytes on them.
The deep pool in the middle of Cyrene is becoming more shallow. It used to be thick with long Tape seagrass. These disappeared about 10 years ago. Today, there is even less seagrass in the pool which was mostly bare sand. In
Jun 2024, I saw thin cover of a variety of short seagrasses. Most of what appears to be bare sand in the middle of the flats were actually thinly covered in
Needle seagrass.
Although it lies in the middle of
an industrial triangle and major shipping lanes, Cyrene has some of Singapore's most amazing shores. We had surveyed in
Jun 2024 for impact of the Pasir Panjang oil spill a few weeks prior and did not see any signs of oil. Today, Cyrene seems clear of oil. Let's hope it stays safe until we return!
Liz LimOthers at the survey: Loh Kok Sheng, Marcus Ng, Leong Liong, James Cabatbat
