24 July 2014

Dead fishes at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve again

This morning I saw about 40 large dead fishes at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve.
Dead fishes have been turning up at Sungei Buloh in April and May.

This morning, I saw about 40 dead fishes in my walk from the Main Bridge to Platform 1. Most of the fishes looked freshly (a few days) dead. Most of the dead fishes look like large market-size farmed grey mullets (30-35cm long).





There were a few other large fishes that didn't look like grey mullets.

In the pond next to the Main Hide, there were a few dead cichlids floating among foamy water.
Here's a closer look at one of the dead cichlids that floated under the Main Bridge. Probably a Green chromide?
Happily swimming at their usual spots and even under this dead fish were the Halfbeaks.
The Banded archerfishes were also present and lively at their usual places.
I did see large schools of what looked like mullet swimming upstream with the incoming tide. So it appears the water crisis may be over?
I saw some monitor lizards, but I didn't see any crocodiles today.

Last week on 15 Jul, it was reported that thousands of fishes died at Malaysian fish farms off Danga Bay, which is across Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve in the Johor Strait.
Later today, I found out that the dead fishes first appeared at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve two days ago in larger numbers. And that yesterday, the water flowing down Sungei Buloh Besar river had turned black.

I have been to the headwaters of the Sungei Buloh Besar river in 2011, where it becomes a canal and have seen the water there turn opaque white like milk.
Water at the headwaters of Sungei Buloh Besar
near farms turning white as milk in 2011.

There are a lot of farms that lie upstream from Sungei Buloh river. Are they dumping into the river and causing these drastic water quality issues?

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