The fishes and crustacean that used to thrive at the Kranji Reservoir Park are now struggling to survive under extremely polluted conditions, says STOMPer Beachcomber.
While at the reservoir recently, Beachcomber saw the beach littered with all sorts of rubbish from polystyrene boxes to marine debris.
In an email, STOMPer Beachcomber says:
"These pictures were taken at the beach at Kranji Reservoir Park which is under the jurisdiction of the PUB.
"When the tide had receded, the beach was strewn with polystyrene boxes, canvas cloth, plastic bags and marine debris.
"Plastic bags and old clothes were left hanging on the mangrove trees when the tide went down.
"The serious pollution of the beach is getting from bad to worse.
"The sea here abounds with crabs, horseshoe crabs, prawns, fish but now the marine population has been decimated by the pollution."
Related posts: Pollution makes Sembawang beach unsuitable for swimming (26th April 2009)
Look at this filthy Admiralty Road beach! (4th March 2009)
Okay, I won't go so far as to say that the marine life is being destroyed and decimated by all the marine trash. All that pollution definitely isn't good for marine organisms, but I'm sure that life still manages to survive even in such challenging conditions. All the more reason for us to be even more active in cleaning up the shores.
One comment that is often posted in response to posts like these is that the trash drifts over from Malaysia, and hence there is nothing we can do about it. I vehemently disagree with such a statement.
While it is true that some proportion of the litter washed up on our shores originates elsewhere, it is all too apparent that we ourselves are also responsible for creating this mess. A lot of irresponsible littering and dumping goes on in our coastal areas, and it doesn't take a lot of searching to find instances of people leaving their trash on the ground, often a few metres away from a dustbin.
For example, I seriously doubt that the trash in the following pictures had drifted over from Malaysia.
Personally, where it comes to marine litter, I'm much more concerned about nets and fishing lines, which often entangle and kill marine life. I've already shared several photos of various marine creatures tangled up in a previous post, but I'd like to also highlight a recent incident involving Siva and 300 mangrove horseshoe crabs (Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda) rescued from an abandoned driftnet in the Mandai mangroves.
