A small team of volunteers did our annual health check on the northern shores of Chek Jawa with permission from NParks.
Button snails have returned to the northern sand bar! But we notice some common animals were 'missing' too.
The sand bar appears to me to have grown enormously wider. In the centre,
Button snails have returned in large numbers. Although these snails are common on other shores like East Coast Park and even some parts of Changi, we have not seen them in large numbers at Chek Jawa for many years. These little snails with beautifully marked shells (no two are exactly alike!) are eaten by predatory snails. Their empty shells are taken over by tiny hermit crabs and today, I saw many such occupied shells adorned with tiny
hermit hitching anemones!
Today, I saw lots of moon snails of various kinds. The most abundant were
Ball moon snails. There were also many
Tiger moon snails. I saw a pair that look like they were mating (or trying to eat the same time?). I also saw the
Naked moon snail. For the first time, I saw a
Lined moon snail and
Spotted moon snail on Chek Jawa. There were also many
sand collars, which are the egg mass created by mama moon snails. We didn't come across other predatory snails common in our other sandy shores: like olive snails, bonnet snails or fig snails. These snails have not been commonly seen on our previous surveys either.
There were lots of
Cake sand dollars on the northern sand bar too. Also some Sand sea stars. I saw some
Common sea stars in the southern area and a few in the centre, but none on the northern sand bar. Before the 2007 mass deaths, these sea stars were so abundant, you could hardly walk on some parts of Chek Jawa if you wanted to avoid stepping on them. We saw first signs of them only in
Aug 2020. There was also a small
Eight-armed sea star in the south. Unlike at Changi, there were only a few
Thorny sea cucumbers and
Pink warty sea cucumbers. Although there were many small
Garlic bread sea cucumbers in the inner seagrass lagoon.
It was disconcerting that we couldn't find any
Haddon's carpet anemones on the seagrassy areas of the seaward facing part of the northern sand bar. They used to be quite common here. But we were relieved to see them on the inner lagoon and many more on the southern part of Chek Jawa. There were also some
Swimming anemones, some
Big hermit hitching anemones as well as some
Cerianthids in the seagrass areas.
Seagrasses grow lush on the seaward side of the northern sand bar. Lots of shorebirds are seen here and throughout the sand flats and seagrass meadows of Chek Jawa.
I saw only a few furrows that look like
dugong feeding trails, on the seaward side and inner lagoon side of the northen sand bar. But seagrasses are still lush, growing fresh and clear of epiphytes. Mostly
Spoon seagrass with large leaves,
Needle seagrass with narrow leaves. I only saw some
Fern seagrass in the middle of the lagoon.
Smooth ribbon seagrass continues to flourish and have taken over the southern sand bar and large parts of the southern area.
There were many of these structures near the high shore. Not sure what is going on, but it's good to know that Chek Jawa is serving as a study site for scientific experiments.
Some of the structures can also be seen from the boardwalk. Update: more about these structures on the
NUS website.
Unfortunately, the trash build up on the northern shore still remains. We have seen this going on for years. But today, we didn't come across any fish traps or nets.
What is the fate of Chek Jawa?The
2013 landuse plan by the Ministry of National Development released in response to
2013 Population White Paper shows plans for 'possible future reclamation' (in light blue surrounded by dotted lines) that may impact Chek Jawa.
The plan includes plans for a road link (black line) from the mainland jumping off at Punggol, crossing to Pulau Ubin through Chek Jawa to jump off to Pulau Tekong before circling back to the mainland on Changi East. Proposed reclamation (in yellow) will bury Pasir Ris shores, Pulau Sekudu and Chek Jawa as well as a large amount of shore at Changi Beach. I feel it is thus important to update our understanding of what is going on in the field at these sites including Chek Jawa and Pulau Sekudu.
The Singapore Blue Plan 2018Among the Proposed Areas for Immediate Conservation Priority, the Singapore Blue Plan 2018 proposes that the intertidal and subtidal marine areas of Pulau Ubin to be designated Marine Reserve.
The proposed area would include Tanjung Chek Jawa, the largest known intertidal area in northern Singapore. Considered one of the richest in Singapore, Chek Jawa comprises many adjacent ecosystems: coastal hill forest, mangrove areas, rocky shores, seagrass meadows, coral communities, and sandy areas. Chek Jawa remains an icon of celebration and hope for many Singaporeans since its reprieve from reclamation in 2001.
Much of the remaining coastal areas around Pulau Ubin are mangrove areas. Protecting these can be impactful due to the relatively large interconnected areas. Already, a community-driven project, Restore Ubin Mangroves (R.U.M.) Initiative, is in place to rehabilitate mangrove areas previously converted to fish and shrimp farms. These areas also offer hope for the recovery of the smallclawed otter population.
DOWNLOAD the Plan, SUPPORT the Plan! More on the
Singapore Blue Plan 2018 site.
Photos by others on this surveyLoh Kok ShengDayna CheahVincent ChooOthers on this survey: Jonathan Tan.
