Terumbu Pempang Laut is still very much alive! We saw dugong feeding trails in the seagrass meadows there!
And two Giant clams! Although the corals seem alright, I did see many with pale patches.
Terumbu Pempang Laut is one of our largest submerged reefs and located near industrial islands such as Jurong Island and Pulau Bukom.
It was great to see many
dugong feeding trails today on the thin meadows of Spoon seagrass. I saw saw dugong feeding trails here in
Aug 2016, the first time we noted them was in
May 2012.
Here's a video clip of the dugong feeding trails and seagrasses on this shore.
This shore doesn't really have many corals, although there are some large boulder shaped corals.
Most of the large corals I saw were
Merulinid corals. I saw many colonies with pale edges or patches.
I saw some
Pore corals, many were pale. I only saw one
Cauliflower coral and some
Blue corals. The sargassum bloom meant that I couldn't really cover the reef edge, perhaps that is why I didn't come across many other kinds of corals. I saw many more kinds of corals on the last survey in
May 2017.
Although there were patches of fresh green seagrasses, the seagrass situation seems worse than on the last survey in
May 2017. While I saw lots of sprinkles (not dense) growths of
Spoon seagrass with small and large leaves, there were some patches of
Sickle seagrass mostly cropped.
I only saw some small patches of cropped
Tape seagrass.
The rest of the team spotted a small
Fluted giant clam, a new sighting for us on this shore.
The larger Fluted giant clam that we have seen on our past surveys seems alright! We saw it first in
Jun 2014. As on the last survey in May 2017, there were a few
Common sea stars near the seagrass meadows in the middle of the reef, most were in 'mating' position. The sandy area also had a lot of
Oval moon snails.
Here's a video clip of some of the other animals that I saw including some nudibranchs, a worm eel and anemone shrimps in a
Giant carpet anemone. I saw some anemonefishes in these anemones too, but they were too well hidden to document. The rest of the team also spotted many other interesting animals.
Terumbu Pempang Laut from our boat, with Jurong Island nearby.
Terumbu Pempang Laut 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 Hantu, Terumbu Pempang Darat, Terumbu Pempang Tengah and Pulau Jong and Terumbu Semakau.
Let's hope Terumbu Pempang Laut stays safe until we can visit again.
Photos by others on the trip
Jianlin Liu
Liz Lim
Shawne Goh
Sunny Tan
Others on this trips: Jahson and Nick, Nick Yap, Jesselyn.
