It has become our tradition to survey Big Sister's Island during the Lunar New Year. Part of Singapore's first Marine Park, the island is
closed for enhancement works till end March 2024. We did our survey with permission from NParks.
We saw Giant clams, 'Nemos', lots of corals and other interesting marine life.
Most of the shores on both Big and Small Sisters' Islands were reclaimed: seawalls were built on the reef edge and the reef flat buried. The original islands were much tinier. Most of Big Sister's Island is ringed by artificial seawalls, which create two swimming lagoons. Since the reclamation, living corals have returned in the big lagoon of Big Sisters Island.
We saw four
Fluted giant clams on our survey today! They appeared to be healthy. I also saw
Clown anemonefish in almost every
Giant carpet anemone that I came across. For the first time on this shore, I saw a
Fire anemone and a
Keeled heart urchin (dead skeleton). There was also a fresh moult of a
Rock lobster.
Here's a video of a large Clown anemonefish, and a small one.
I also saw a
Dawn flatworm swimming in the water.
I only saw two Fluted giant clams. The rest saw two more. Here's one that Chay Hoon saw.
And another one that Kok Sheng saw.
It was a little disconcerting to see many colonies that were pale, with pale or bleaching portions, and some colonies were fully pale. This is somewhat worse than our last survey here in
Feb 2021.
Kok Sheng also saw some partially bleaching Cauliflower corals outside the seawall.
But I saw a good variety of healthy hard corals.There were also many small colonies on the artificial seawall. Kok Sheng noticed many large corals on the shore facing Small Sisters Island which we have not observed before.
A lovely surprise to see a large patch (about 10m x 10m) of
Branching montipora corals in the middle of the large lagoon. I've seen these large patches form on the intertidal of many other islands and submerged reefs. But my first time seeing this on Big Sisters Island.
There was also a good variety of
leathery soft corals.
In the small lagoon, the sandy areas had lots of
Oval moon snails big and small, some
Common sea stars and
Cake sand dollars.
I didn't see much seagrass and the clump of
Tape seagrass in the small lagoon remains cropped. But I also didn't come across any fish traps or nets. Let's hope the shores remain safe until we can return to survey it again.
Photos by others on this survey
Chay HoonJames KohLoh Kok Sheng
