Today is the last possible morning tide in the year to survey this Changi shore that was impacted by the
300-tonne oil spill in the East Johor Strait in Jan 2017.
We had planned to survey it in May 2017, but were shocked that an excavator was digging up the shore. It was relief to see today that the shores were still alive, although not as lively and rich as before.
This shore remains dominated by echinoderms. The most abundant is probably the
Pink warty sea cucumbers. As well as
Thorny sea cucumbers.
There were still many buried
Ball sea cucumbers, some
Orange sea cucumbers. Jonathan saw a
Purple sea cucumber and
Sea apple sea cucumber.
There were a few
Eight-armed sea stars. Some were large, one was tiny.
These are predators and can move rapidly.
There were many tiny to small
Biscuit sea stars. I saw one small orange
Cake sea star and one
Painted sand star.
The most surprising thing for me today was to see many feather stars dotting the seagrass meadows. I saw about 20. Mostly
Blue feather stars but also two
Black-and-white feather stars, one of them with a
commensal brittle star in it (which I only saw when processing the photo).
Feather stars can move using their many arms.
There were many
Sea Pencils, a few small
Flowery sea pens,
Spiky sea pens and
Slender sea pens.
I saw a few tiny
Ball flowery soft corals. I couldn't see any brittle stars in them.
As usual, the
Common cerianthids were riddled with
Black phoronid worms. There were also many tiny cerianthids.
I saw two small
Haddon's carpet anemones, a few
Tiger anemones and some
Striped sand anemones.
I also saw one tiny
Cerberilla nudibranch. But I didn't see any moon snails or other large snails or large clams. I also didn't see any octopuses.
The most interesting find for me today was a
Zebra sole. It has a cute way of 'crawling' over the sandy bottom with the fins along its body margins. It looks more like a wide centipede than a fish. When it is alarmed, it spreads out its tail to reveal the colourful patterns.
There were also many other small
flatfishes. I saw one
White sea urchin.
The meadows were mostly
Spoon seagrasses (large leaf blades). I also saw some
Needle seagrass (narrow leaf blades)
And some sprinkles of
Fern seagrass. Kok Sheng spotted a patch of
Smooth ribbon seagrass during our
Jun 2016 survey. But I didn't see any today.
It was nice to see some signs of
dugong feeding trails in deeper water. We also saw these signs here on our last survey in
Jun 2016.
But in some parts, there was no seagrass. Instead, growths of
Scalpel green seaweeds. The shore was also firmer and sandier.
I checked out the rocky part of this shore and the rocks were bare of life.
We had noticed a sharp decline in richness during our survey in
Aug 2015, compared to the survey in
May 2015, when I already noticed a decline compared to our last visit here in
May 2014 and
Jun 2013. The decline seemed to have stopped in
Jun 2016, although the shore was not as rich as it used to be.
Today, I sense that there has been a further decline in the richness of this shore. Not surprising since it had to cope with an oil spill as well as excavations.
More about these here.
Photos by others on this trip
- Jonathan Tan on facebook, including what he saw on 20 Aug on the same shore.
Other on this trip: Toh Chay Hoon.
