Right next to the Landfill, there are rich living reefs on Terumbu Semakau!
Teeming with corals, fishes and other special creatures. Today we saw seahorses, clown anemonefishes, giant clams, tiger cowrie and more!
Here's some highlights of what I saw.
Among the amazing colourful animals here are large
Magnificent sea anemones. These animals clone themselves and thus often found in clusters of individuals with similarly coloured body columns. There were also many
Giant carpet anemones. Some had
clown anemonefishes, although they were very shy. I saw one
Haddon's carpet anemone and one
Merten's carpet anemone.
Kok Sheng captured these lovely
Tomato anemonefishes who live in
Bubble tip sea anemones. The rest of the team also spotted seahorses.
The
Burrowing giant clam is still there. The rest of the team also saw a
Fluted giant clam. And I came across a
Tiger cowrie.
I saw two small
Leathery sea fans. I saw many large
Leathery soft corals and
Asparagus flowery soft corals and they all were alright.
There were many
Brain corals. Most seemed alright.
Also many corals that are leafy like
Lettuce coral and
Carnation coral.
Many corals that succumb early to bleaching were present and looked well. This included
Anchor corals,
Acropora corals,
Disk corals. There were also
Moon corals,
Pebble corals,
Anemone corals and
Galaxy corals. I also saw many
Sandpaper corals and
Cauliflower corals that were alright, just forgot to take photos of them!
But some of the
Boulder pore corals were very pale.
The big patch of
Branching montipora is dead and seaweeds have grown on the skeletons. But I notice a few clumps of new coral growing.
There were many colourful
sponges of all kinds as well as sprinkles of colourful
ascidians. Some of the team saw interesting nudibranchs!
I sense that the seagrasses may be slowly coming back. Although heavily covered with epiphytes, there was good cover of Spoon seagrasses on many of the pools in the middle of the reef flat.
There were many clumps of
Tape seagrass with longish leaf blades. Although also many clumps with short cropped leaves.
I saw many small clusters of
Serrated ribbon seagrass that looked fresh and green.
Although some of the
Spoon seagrasses that were not covered with epiphytes were bleaching.
There used to be lush seagrass meadows on Terumbu Semakau. Here's what the seagrass meadows looked like when we visited in
June 2010. Let's hope the seagrasses will return soon!
When we returned to the boat Alex said he spotted a sea turtle. We are glad on this trip, we didn't come across any nets or traps like we did in
Aug 2017. Let's hope it stays safe until we can visit again.
On the way home, Alex pointed out six large fishing boats that are equipped to do trawl fishing in the deep sea. Oh dear.
Terumbu Semakau lies next to the Semakau Landfill and close to the petrochemical plants on Pulau Bukom.
Terumbu Semakau is one of
the existing natural shores that may be impacted by the
landuse plan by the Ministry of National Development released in Jan 2013 in response to the Populations White Paper with a 6.9 million population target. The dotted margined blue areas are "Possible Future Reclamation".
The other shores impacted by this plan include Pulau Jong, Pulau Hantu, Terumbu Pempang Darat, Terumbu Pempang Tengah, Terumbu Pempang Laut.
Singapore's submerged reefs are often out of sight under the high tide and thus forgotten. Let's hope Terumbu Semakau stays safe until we can visit again.
Photos by others on this trip
Richard Kuah saw a seahorse
More photos by
Richard Kuah
By
Kok Sheng
By
Lisa Lim
Meanwhile,
Chay Hoon surveyed Changi shore
