300m fishing net seen on Pulau Semakau (South), 23 May 2023

An approximately 300m-long fishing net was seen on Pulau Semakau (South) close to the Barammundi Asia fish farm there.

It had trapped and killed 14 sharks and other marine life.

Abandoned nets on Pulau Semakau (18 Oct 2017)

It was a hot and crispy day with temperature soaring to 35 degrees.

After 3 months, we are back on this stretch of the shore for a site survey looking out for abandoned nets and collecting data helping to understand the impacts of abandoned nets affecting our shores.

Abandoned nets on Pulau Semakau (1 Jul 2017)

Recently, a team of volunteers together with a few staff from Nparks did a site survey on Pulau Semakau for abandoned nets and collecting data on the net together with what is trapped in it.

The team split into 2 groups, each group helping to comb different sectors of the shore. One group who combed the mangrove areas found a few nets entangled with the mangroves roots.  One of the longest net found was about 25m in length. A horseshoe crab was rescued from it. Here's more on the operations that took place.

600m fishing net seen on Pulau Semakau (South), 28 Jan 2017

An approximately 600m-long fishing net was seen on Pulau Semakau (South) close to the Barammundi Asia fish farm there.

Here's more of what we saw.

Update: Eva Lim who works at Barramundi Asia almost immediately replied on the social media post about the net: "what you posted was indeed heartbreaking. We will like to work with your team to remove these nets, and perhaps help to monitor the area together to prevent fishermen from casting nets in this area." She will be looking to activate the farm team to remove the net, and keep an eye out to prevent such nets from being laid in the future. Hurray!

Driftnet traps sharks, horseshoe crabs, stingrays on Pulau Semakau (9 Aug 2013)

Sadly, but not surprisingly, we came across a driftnet during our National Day visit to Pulau Semakau.

In the short portion of the net that I surveyed, I saw 14 horseshoe crabs that were still alive and struggling and seemed freshly entangled in the net. Including two pairs of male and female. They all looked like Coastal horseshoe crabs.

Huge crab in driftnet at Pulau Semakau (13 Nov 2012)

On a TeamSeagrass trip to Pulau Semakau we found a huge Mud crab (Scylla sp.) trapped in an abandoned driftnet. The crab was about 30cm wide! It was still very much alive.

We also saw and removed a small crab trap.

Nets in the mangroves at Semakau (14 Aug 2011)

A small team headed to remove driftnets at the mangroves of Pulau Semakau this morning.

Andy is hard at work on the mangroves growing on the seawall. You can see the huge ropes that have gotten entangled in the mangrove trees here.

Pulau Semakau (25 Jun 2011)

A small team removed a long abandoned driftnet at Pulau Semakau today.

The net was 48m long when we measured it with the tape. But including the bunched up portions, it's probably about 50m long.

Pulau Semakau (28 May 2011)

Volunteers today removed a huge heavy duty net that washed ashore on Pulau Semakau.

It was a very large and heavy net! Back breaking work in the hot mid-day sun on a not-so-low tide.

Pulau Semakau (9 Apr 2011)

A total of about 200m of abandoned driftnets and several traps were found at Pulau Semakau by a small team of nine volunteers.

The nine of us decided to split up into three teams so that we could thoroughly check three separate areas of Pulau Semakau for abandoned nets and traps.

Pulau Semakau (26 Mar 2011)

Finally, we remove the abandoned driftnet seen some time ago.

The team comprised four ladies, the tide was higher than expected, the net is very long. But as things turned out, we managed to get the job done almost effortlessly!