NParks Spotlight: Treasures Beneath Our Tides!

Having a love for the ocean and marine life, as well as having the precious opportunity to observe wild turtle hatchlings being released into the wild, I wanted to find out more about the diversity of our waters around Singapore as well as our shores. Signing up for this talk was a very big want for me in order to achieve this and attain more knowledge about our shores.

I especially enjoyed the presentation by Ms Cheo Pei Rong (Senior Manager, Biodiversity) as it was extremely informative and perfectly-paced and casual, yet gave me all the facts I’ve been dying to know about for a long time. She mostly talked about the different types of shores Singapore has and named a LOT of marine species which is always exciting to know. One thing I learnt was that all these animals near our shores are especially adapted to survive harsh conditions due to rapid changes and fluctuations of the tides in Singapore, and yet our shores are still blooming with biological diversity. I was surprised to learn that we actually have stonefish in Singapore, and now I’m even more cautious to step and wade into tide pools and our seagrass meadows because of that! I think out of all the animals she mentioned, I especially like the octopi because they are intelligent and cute and yet, also venomous! I found out that they can change their colour to blend in to their environment as well as their SKIN TEXTURE to perfectly camouflage, and I’m just stunned animals like these even exist, more so right here in Singapore.

One insight I’ve gained from this talk is that NParks has quite a few masterplans and beach surveys to help with the overall nature conservation programme, and that there are apparently more than one seagrass meadows location all around Singapore and not just on offshore islands. This really encourages me to sign up for these marine biodiversity surveys as I can also go to Changi Beach and Pasir Ris Park to take part in these programmes. Hence, I really enjoyed this talk and I’m planning to sign up for even more talks by NParks in the future!