Volunteers needed at Mandai mangroves!

Volunteers are needed to help Rick and Wei Kit map and measure 5,000 trees at Mandai mangroves! Today I was back out with them.

This study is important to better understand and thus protect this amazingly diverse mangrove forest! It's also lots of fun, and a great way to get a glimpse of a special mangrove forest.

Shell refinery fire at Bukom: what caused it?

"The fire broke out during preparation work for maintenance" preliminary findings from the investigation showed, according to recent mainstream media reports.

Foaming operations at the fire site,
photo from Channel NewsAsia 1 Oct 11

Debby Ng of the Hantu Bloggers also shared a first look at the impact on the natural reefs at Pulau Hantu.

Learning about Mandai mangroves from Dr Yong

It's a treasure to spend time with Dr John Yong as I always learn so much from him. Today, he took time from his busy schedule to share astonishing insights into Mandai mangroves with Rick and I.

Dr Yong starts teaching us even before we enter the mangroves. Pointing out the signs of where the back mangroves used to be before they were cleared for kampungs and the railway.

Living corals at Big Sisters Island, and two driftnets

The Sisters Islands have among our best reefs that ordinary people can visit. Here, I saw intriguing coral behaviour such as the long tentacles put out by this Carnation coral. The tentacles seem studded with  powerful stingers!

We also saw lots of fishes and sadly, also two driftnets.

Lively St. John's Island

Knobbly sea stars on St. John's Island! Although common on other southern shores, it's rather unexpected to see these large sea stars on the narrow shores of St. Johns Island.

I saw this Knobbly sea star (Protoreaster nodosus) in June, and it was nice to see it yesterday. The rest of the team saw another one, so there are two of them! In fact, the shores were quite lively with sightings of Sundial snails, Sargassum sea slug, other rare animals, lots of corals and fishes and more!