This shore is close to last week's
an oil spill off Pengerang. Six months ago, there was a
300-tonne oil spill in the East Johor Strait that impacted Pulau Ubin. During our last survey in
Jun 2016, we saw coral bleaching.
Today, I'm relieved that I didn't see any coral bleaching. Although there were fewer hard corals, and I saw pale and 'melting' sponges as well as some pale flowery soft corals, we did see a wide variety of marine life. Nevertheless, Beting Bronok continues to decline and appears to be slowly dying.
There are still many colourful sponges, and some sea fans on the small richest corner of Beting Bronok.
The most abundant sponge were
Yellow bumpy sponges, which seemed to dominate this shore since our survey in
Aug 2015. And there were a variety of many other sponges in small clumps.
But I saw several clumps of sponges that look like they were melting or losing colour.
I saw a few hard corals, none of them were bleaching. I saw three small
Boulder pore corals. A few
Branching pore corals and some tiny patches of
Neat hexa corals. This is much fewer than the number of colonies I saw on our survey in
Jun 2016 during mass coral bleaching. I did not see any
Big ring merulinid corals which were bleaching on our survey last year.
There were many
Pink flowery soft corals. Most seemed alright although a few had yellowish tips. There were many
Spiky flowery soft corals, none of them bleaching. But only a few
Ball soft corals .
The most common anemone was
Haddon's carpet anemones. Those I saw seemed alright.
Other anemones seen included many
Swimming anemone, one
Snaky anemone, one
Mini carpet anemone and one
Big hermit hitching anemone. The rest of the team also saw some special anemones such as the
Glass anemone. Sadly, we didn't see any
Haekel's anemones. Beting Bronok used to be home to many of them as recently as our survey in
Aug 2015.
Button zoanthids still cover vast areas of the reef. I also saw a small patch of
Sea mat zoanthids.
I came across a few large cerianthids:
Common ceriathids and one
Black mouth cerianthid. There were also many small clumps of various hydroids including
Fern hydroids and the nasty
Stinging hydroids. Also many
Candy hydroids although most of them were heavily covered in epiphytes.
There were also many
Spiky sea pens, some
Flowery sea pens and one
Slender sea pen.
There were some
Candelabra sea fans and
Gnarled sea fans.
Here's some sea fans that seem different.
Among the most interesting encounters for me today was a pair of
Spangled flatworms 'penis' fencing. There were many of these flatworms today. Marine flatworms are hermaphrodites, that is, each flatworm has both male and female reproductive organs. When two flatworms meet, they exchange sperm. Some species simply insert their needle-like penis anywhere in the body of the partner. This is not surprisingly called 'hypodermic impregnation'. In yet other species, each flatworm tries to impregnate the other without itself being impregnated, as it involves more energy to produce eggs. This results in a sort of 'penis-fencing' when the two flatworms meet!
I came across many large
Biscuit sea stars, one large
Knobbly sea star. Kok Sheng saw 15 Knobbly sea stars in deeper water! I also saw several
Thorny sea urchins. I didn't see many sea cucumbers: one
Thorny sea cucumber, a few
Orange sea cucumbers and two
Big synaptid sea cucumbers. The rest of the team also saw a
Red scaly sea star, the
Bordered sea star and a large
Basket star. None of saw a
feather star.
I saw several
Blue dragons and one
Ceratosoma gracillimum nudibranch. The rest of the team saw many more nudibranchs of various kinds.
There were many many
Onyx cowries once again (there were few on our last survey in
Jun 2016). I saw one
False cowrie in a soft coral, two
Noble volute snails and a few live
Gong gong snails. None of us saw the
Baler snail which we did see in
Jun 2014. I saw only one octopus.
There were also many
Fan bellied filefishes. I saw one
False scorpionfish, one small
Kite butterflyfish, two
Pink-eared emperors and a large
Toadfish out of the water (they usually do fine after the tide comes in).
I saw several
Stone crabs, one
Red egg crab, many
Purple-legged swimming crabs and one well camouflaged
Velcro crab.
A thick layer of fine silt has settled on large areas of the southern edge of Beting Bronok. Today, I saw sprinkles of
Spoon seagrass with large leaf blades and some
Hairy spoon seagrass here.
The seagrasses are very sparse though. We first started seeing this in
Jun 2014.
Beting Bronok slowly dying
Every year we visit Benting Bronok, we see less and less marine life. Today, the shore seems similar to what we saw in
Jun 2016, which was better than during our last survey in
Aug 2015. This is what the shore looked like today.
This is what the shore looked like in years past...
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| Mostly zoanthids only on the shore, Aug 2015 |
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| Marine life on at Beting Bronok in 2014 |
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| Marine life on Beting Bronok in 2013. |
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| Colourful marine life at Beting Bronok in 2012. |
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| Beting Bronok in 2012. |
Here's what Beting Bronok looked like ten years ago in 2003.
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| Beting Bronok in 2003. |
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| Beting Bronok in 2003. |
There used to be a wondrous variety of
sea fans.
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| Sea fans on Beting Bronok in 2004. |
Hopefully they will return as sea fans are common even on Changi shores. But lost forever probably are the wonderful
Sunflower mushroom corals and other corals that we used to see here.
Where is Beting Bronok? What is it's status and future?
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| Click on image for larger view. |
When the
2030 landuse plan by the Ministry of National Developmentwas announced, it was also announced that Beting Bronok and Pulau Unum have been
granted 'Nature Area' status. As I understand it, this status means the area "will be kept for as long as possible until required for development". Here's
an earlier about 'Nature Area' status seem to mean.
It was good to see that Beting Bronok remains alive and full of fascinating creatures. But to me, it seems to be in steady decline since the reclamation started at nearby Pulau Tekong . It has since also been affected by the flooding that led to
mass deaths at Chek Jawa in 2007, and the
coral bleaching in 2010, a
ferry ran aground on Beting Bronok in Jul 2011 and it suffered
mass coral bleaching again in 2016. Here's some
old photos of marine life at Beting Bronok. We can only hope for the best for this wonderful reef on our Northern shore.
There are plans that may affect Beting Bronok a in the not too distant future. These include
plans to locate at Pengerang Johor, a petrochemical complex that was rejected in Taiwan for environmental and health reasons.
Today, we noticed some large scale construction going on at Pengerang Johor, opposite Beting Bronok.
Just as on our last survey in
Jun 2016, today we didn't see any fish traps. We almost always see signs of fishing pressure on this reef on every survey. We also notice there are changes in the structure of the reef, the northern 'arm' around the lagoon appears to be much narrower.
Thanks to Chay Hoon for organising the trip. Our annual trips to Beting Bronok are bitter-sweet. Like visiting our favourite grandma and watching her painfully, slowly fade away. I feel privileged to have seen her at her best.
Photos by others on this trip
Others on this trip: Ivan Kwan, Adriane Lee.
