Coral Bleaching in Bali
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Hi Frogfish,
In East Bali (Bali's Gilis, Padang Bai and around Penida), we are not seeing much, if any bleaching. A week ago, we helped researchers conduct studies on porite corals and we did ask them what they thought as we'd hear rumours of bleaching in Sanur and Lembongan. They also said that there was no noticeable bleaching.
The head of conservation at Penida had written an article as early as April 4th saying that bleaching was happening. This contradicts what we are seeing on the g round but it may be explained by the fact that the corals we look at are much deeper. Some observers may be looking at shallow water corals in a couple of feet of water that do not benefit from the cold thermoclines deeper corals benefit from.
Here is a link to the article mentioned above: Bali News: In Grief for Our Reefs
In East Bali (Bali's Gilis, Padang Bai and around Penida), we are not seeing much, if any bleaching. A week ago, we helped researchers conduct studies on porite corals and we did ask them what they thought as we'd hear rumours of bleaching in Sanur and Lembongan. They also said that there was no noticeable bleaching.
The head of conservation at Penida had written an article as early as April 4th saying that bleaching was happening. This contradicts what we are seeing on the g round but it may be explained by the fact that the corals we look at are much deeper. Some observers may be looking at shallow water corals in a couple of feet of water that do not benefit from the cold thermoclines deeper corals benefit from.
Here is a link to the article mentioned above: Bali News: In Grief for Our Reefs
andrethediver
Contributor
Not much in Amed or South Lombok although they do expect it with water temperature 87F these days.
Yeah, maybe some divers from Menjangan, Pemuteran, Tulamben or Amed could chime in. I Expect bleaching to be very different in places which don't benefit from cold water brought in by the Indonesian through flow.
We dived Menjangan and Pemuteran last week and noticed a lot of bleaching. It was our first visit to the area and so do not know how recent a phenomenon this is. Water temps as measured by my computer reached as high as 32C.
I just asked our coral researchers from Singapore, who were studying porites on Bali last week with us. Here is what they had to say:
"Selang was all good, Padang Bai all good.....Nusa Penida was not! In the shallows big Porites were glowing white to the surface. A lot of soft corals had ejected also. I don't think it is an issue and as most of the corals in Penida should recover due to nutrient thru flow and a lack of stressor pollutants."
"Selang was all good, Padang Bai all good.....Nusa Penida was not! In the shallows big Porites were glowing white to the surface. A lot of soft corals had ejected also. I don't think it is an issue and as most of the corals in Penida should recover due to nutrient thru flow and a lack of stressor pollutants."
Last time I was in Tulamben, a couple of weeks ago, there was quite a bit of bleaching, especially in the shallower areas - I had 31°C showing on my computer...
I have been diving in Tulamben the past 3 days, but as it's my first visit I have no prior familiarity with the coral here. All I can say is the coral I have seen has not been especially extensive. The site known as "Coral Garden" has little nice coral. But I was informed the damage was due to a storm. Some bleaching is evident but not as bad as I saw out in Menjangan/Pemuteran last week. Water temps here have averaged (by my computer) around 29 C, compared with Menjangan/Pemuteran at around 30.5.
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