News of yet another mass fish death hitting the shores travelled fast.
I decided to see what the condition was like at the north-western bit of Lim Chu Kang on the 18Apr2014.
The scenes were unbelieveable... dead fish were everywhere. I think i saw about 200 floaters at various spots around the jetty as well as on the shore and mudflat.
Here are pictures of some of the dead fish. (All of them were mullet which is a species bred in the nearby fishfarms apparently both on the Malaysian as well as on the Singapore side of the Western Johor Straits)
Notice the green plastic bag in the right foreground?
Read about its significance later on in this post.
floaters amongst the plastic and foam debris
floaters between the jetty and the Coast Guard facility.
floaters on the other side of the jetty facing the Cashin House.
floaters with a JM Ice truck delivering packaged crushed ice in the background
more floaters
floaters along the shore east of the jetty
floaters amongst the other trash on the shore
floaters and a foam float in the background
There were also three huge piles of bags on the lower part of the shore east of the jetty. The bags sounded (after a foot prod) like they were filled with dead cockles presumably the same type covering the shore below the bags. It looks like someone had brought in the bags of cockles and the plan was to dump them on the mudflat to firm up the substrate. I wonder if permission from any specific authority is required for such action.
A panorama east of the jetty area.
Note the JM Ice van on the lower part of the shore delivering ice.
some of the bags containing the cockle shells.
They seem to be reused poultry feed bags from Malaysia.
A close up of the cockle shells a.k.a. 'Hum' covering the shore. Lots of "Hum".
There were also some Veolia contract cleaners tidying up the shore area closest the landward end of the jetty.
some of the dead fish closest to the road were picked up and put into trash bags.
This site (despite the intensive off-shore fish farming just off the coast or rather because of ) is one of Singapore's dirtiest shores and mangroves ...(actually, it could very well be the worst).
Cleaning is backbreaking work and the stench of the dead fish made it worse. The cleaners only managed to briefly cleanup a small part of the shore the jetty. The next incoming tide will bring in more trash.
Cleaning is backbreaking work and the stench of the dead fish made it worse. The cleaners only managed to briefly cleanup a small part of the shore the jetty. The next incoming tide will bring in more trash.
Have a look at this unimaginably dirty shore ...
abandoned boats...which may collect rainwater and breed mosquitoes...
lots of carelessly discarded plastic trash...some of which may also collect rainwater and sea water ... and breed mosquitoes
lots and lots of plastic bags everywhere, stuck in the sand, stuck high on trees, ...
a large black drum, one of quite a few large drums
which are commonly used in the fishfarming industry
a panorama of the dirtiest shore in Singapore...
a video panorama of the part of the shore that is being covered up with cockle shells ...
looks like some squatters have moved in and are storing their stuff at spots along the shore.
Another large drum. This blue one had the characteristic line of barnacles on it showing that it had been in seawater for long enough for the barnacles to grow.
This white bag seemed to contain quite a few other bags. It looks like someone had compacted a few unwanted bags into the one large bag and discarded it into coastal waters.
A makeshift shelter just before the mangroves. A perfect place in a corner of disorder for some solitude away from the prying eyes of the law.
This was a pile of burnt plastic fused together on the mangrove floor.
Open burning is actually an offence in Singapore...but i guess no one gives a damn in this corner of disorder.
Another large drum further in the mangrove
amongst lots of other trash ...
an abandoned driftnet left to merge into floor of the mangrove
a panorama of the dirtiest shore from another angle...
There were also some large EPS foam (commonly mistakenly called 'styrofoam') littering the shore.
This foam is commonly used in the fishfarming industry to act as floats. Unfortunately, unshielded foam breaks apart easily and the component spheres of foam will float away to line the shores and mangroves...eventually leading a plasticised shore....and plasticised waters...in which we will continue to farm fish. (Duh!)
See http://www.plasticshore.org/index.php?page=problem
See http://www.plasticshore.org/index.php?page=problem
ooh, a huge chunk of foam...waiting to break up and plasticise the shore...
looks like someone is squatting a new boat on the shore.
another panorama of the shore and the abandoned boat
this is a lot of plastic...
a discarded large plastic bag.... used to contain flour
an abandoned improvised floatation device with an abandoned driftnet
beside it waiting to merge with the mudflat...
meanwhile, someone had piled up some trash from the shore at a corner near the Police Coast Guard Fence. I hope this gets cleared soon or it may get raised by an untimely high tide and strewn all over the shore again.
The site is very close to the Cashin House which is just about 300 metres eastwards of the jetty. this picturesque house has received quite a bit of attention recently in the news as it is to be conserved.
Notice the white-bellied sea eagle flying above the house.
Perhaps we should consider improving this entire corner of Singapore as well (by cleaning it up and instituting better protocols for fishfarms) together with conserving the Cashin House.
Meanwhile, fishfarming support activities continue daily. The next picture shows a JM Ice truck delivering packaged crushed ice in green printed plastic bags. It looked as if two groups of fishfarmers were receiving their order of ice. Each one took quite a number.
There was also a line of white bags on the jetty waiting to be picked up...
These bags indicated that they contained refined sugar from a Thai supplier. Perhaps these are also being re-used and contain something else as it does not make any sense for fishfarmers to use so much of refined sugar. Does it?
Not unexpectedly, there was a similar discarded refined sugar bag on the shore close to the Police Coast Guard fence. Looks like whoever is using the bags may be a little careless about trash disposal.
I wonder how many fishfarmers use whatever is in these bags. Just one or a few?
Cant understand the significance of the JM Ice bags?
JM Ice bags are being seen at the nearby Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve. How did these get there? No prizes if your answer is that the Singapore fishfarmers at the Lim Chu Kang area are dumping the unwanted empty JM Ice bags into the coastal water instead of bringing them to the jetty and depositing them into the bins provided for trash.
This shows that the fishfarmers cannot be trusted with bringing their trash to the shore.
Some are but not all.
The large skip tank for general waste and the smaller blue plastic bin for biological waste just off the jetty.
With the long weekend, some famillies were making their way to some of the fishfarms for a day or two of an alternative lifestyle...
This seems to be quite common for fishfarms on both the Western and Eastern sectors.
The weekend population on the fishfarms increases significantly as the farms welcome visitors.
I hope the visitors dispose of their trash in an environmentally sound way.
Meanwhile, the cause of the mass fish death remains a mystery.
Also, it appears that the fish deaths did not come from a Singapore fishfarm.
Read about another visit to the same shore the very next day : http://wildshores.blogspot.sg/2014/04/what-fish-figuring-out-dead-fishes-at.html
The Big questions are whether our farmed fish are safe to eat and
what can be done to keep the shores clean.
what can be done to keep the shores clean.
What are the testing parameters of fish farmed in the Johore Straits?
Do you like to eat fish? Where is it from?
What did the fish die from and will it affect the rest of the fish farmed in the area?
