Best of our wild blogs: 1 Jul 19

Launch of Private Lives Exposé of Singapore's Coral Reefs!
Celebrating Singapore Shores!

Singapore Bird Report – May 2019
Singapore Bird Group

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Oil patches cleaned up from East Coast Park beach, water quality remains normal

Goh Yan Han Straits Times 30 Jun 19;

SINGAPORE - Patches of oil were seen on the shoreline at a section of East Coast Park on Saturday (June 29).

The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) said that it received a report at 8.04am that there was a smell of oil off East Coast Park.

It immediately dispatched its patrol craft to the seaward side of the reported area to investigate, as well as began cleaning up the small patch of oil sighted off the park's carpark C.

In response to queries from The Straits Times, an MPA spokesman said that the source of the oil spill is unknown, as there was no report of an oil spill incident prior to Saturday's incident.

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Malaysia, Johor: Breathing difficulties, nausea, vomiting return to Pasir Gudang

Kalbana Perimbanayagam New Straits Times 30 Jun 19;

PASIR GUDANG: As classes here resumed today, some 130 students from 15 schools experienced breathing difficulties, nausea and vomiting, similar to the incident 10 days ago which involved 18 schools in the district, caused by pollution.

Today’s incident also saw three teachers including SK Kopok's headmistress being affected.

A total of 23 pupils from SK Kopok were among the 130 who fell sick just hours after the morning school session began. However, only 30 were sent for further health screenings at the Masai and Pasir Gudang health clinics.

The other students who showed less severe reaction to the pollution /allergy were given first aid and allowed to go home.

Classes continued as usual for the other students, including some 46 special needs students at SK Kopok and other schools in the district.

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Malaysia: Sabah's anti-poaching efforts boosted with RM4mil donation

muguntan vanar The Star 30 Jun 19;

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Forestry Department's special "Protect Team" – aimed at wiping out poachers and traffickers threatening the state's iconic wildlife species – has been given a boost with an RM4mil donation from the Sime Darby Foundation.

This is part of the state's renewed effort to eradicate poaching and wildlife trafficking by having more enforcement on the ground.

The injection will allow an increase in the number of enforcers and jump start the implementation of the three State Action Plans 2019-2028 for the protection of Bornean banteng (wild cattle), Sunda clouded leopard and proboscis monkey, launched late last year by state Tourism, Culture, and Environment Minister Datuk Christina Liew.

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Indonesia to welcome back endemic snake-necked turtles

The Jakarta Post 30 Jun 19;

The “repatriation” is to be conducted through a reintroduction program run by the Wildlife Conservation Society Indonesia Program (WCS-IP) and Wildlife Reserve Singapore.

The turtles, which are to be shipped to Indonesia in the next couple of months, have been bred by organizations in a number of countries, including the United States and Austria. Some 26 individuals bred in the US and Austria are now being kept in the Singapore Zoo. However, how many of those are to be sent to their natural habitat in their ancestral home is still under negotiation, Timbul Batubara, the head of the East Nusa Tenggara Resource Conservation Center (BBKSDA), said on Saturday.

The species, called the Roti Island snake-necked turtle, is on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list and is categorized as critically endangered. Roti Island is another name for Rote Island.

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