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The Menagerie

me·nag·er·ie [muh-naj-uh-ree, -nazh-]
1. a collection of wild or unusual animals, especially for exhibition.
2. a place where they are kept or exhibited.
3. an unusual and varied group of people.

We believe we have all 3 at Salang, a survey perimeter of 100 m by 30 m with depths ranging from 12 to 3 m deep. Come see our resident wildlife and corals at the Salang Reef.

We'll be constantly updating this site as we collect more data, and continue our work to discover and learn more about this small patch of reef.

A project by Living Seas.

The Blog

Trip Report 22nd to 24th March 2013

March 25, 2013, Posted in The Blog Comments: No comments

Jun and Tim were really kind to experiment with our newly built quadrat, and here are the results:

As you can tell, the position of the GoPro might be a little too close to the square base. Unfortunately, we didn’t factor in the magnification of the water itself when we were building it! Ah well, back to the drawing board.

In any case, the vignetting of the photos that the GoPro produces also doesn’t lend itself well to doing a photo composite, so it might not...

We built a quadrat!

March 20, 2013, Posted in The Blog Comments: One comment

Gemma and myself experimented today with building a PVC pipe quadrat that Jun and Tim can hopefully use this weekend with the GoPro camera.

IMAG0454

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Trip Report 15th to 17th March 2013

March 19, 2013, Posted in The Blog, The People, The Wildlife Comments: No comments

After much anticipation of what the Menagerie will look like in 2013, a group of us set off to get our first look at what has happened on the site over the monsoon period.

Here’s a quick summary of what we discovered and did. Click the links to see the videos.

All sections of line on the 3m line were broken or snapped (strong surge from monsoon season, maybe we should take down these lines at end of each season?)
The loose ends were tied down by one of the locals who was staying on the island,...

Survey Methodologies

February 24, 2013, Posted in The Blog, The Data Comments: No comments

Water quality measurements

Aim: To measure the quality of the water each time we go to Salang by measuring the pH, dissolved oxygen content, mineral content, temperature and transparency (visibility).

What does measuring these properties of the reef water tell us about the health of the reef? The table below highlights each property we will measure. The significance of the measurement and the optimal range are also listed. Further details are available in the appendix.

Properties

Why

How

Opti...

Survey Questions

February 21, 2013, Posted in The Blog, The Data Comments: One comment

Introduction

With the permanent survey site established we have been looking at what we hope to achieve. This is a long term project so we don’t expect to be able to answer any questions immediately. By monitoring the site regularly we hope to gain a better understanding of the health of the corals and the inhabitants who call Salang their home...

Calling all Scientists!

January 14, 2013, Posted in The Blog Comments: No comments

Are you a marine biologist or scientist who’s interested in learning more about the reef at the Salang Menagerie?

We’re divers and don’t pretend to be marine biologists, so any expert help is always welcome! We would like to offer our services in data collection and maintenance of the reef, so if you’re a marine biologist with an idea about what data would be interesting and valuable to science, then we want to hear from you!

The main inspiration for working on this project has been to create a ...

The Gallery is finally online!

January 6, 2013, Posted in The Blog Comments: No comments

Well, after a fair bit of work, the Gallery for the Salang Menagerie is finally online. We’ve tried to showcase the site in its entirety, which means almost 3500 images, across the entire area of the site.

It’s a lot to go through, and despite some missing videos, some videos that weren’t all that well shot, and some misalignments, we think we’ve got most of the site captured.

Have a look at the full Gallery here, or click on the navigation menu above.

Bear in mind that these images were taken f...

Trip Report 26th to 28th October 2012

December 28, 2012, Posted in The Blog Comments: No comments

By Gemma Thomas

Just how did 6 keen divers manage to take 2776 depth measurements, measure water quality and film the Salang Menagerie over three days, as well as spend some time watching the plethora of wildlife the site has to offer? Keep reading to find out what they did:

Friday 26th October 2012

After arriving in Tioman, there was a great deal of pre-dive preparation, before we could hit the water and start collecting the data...

Mr Cuttlefish and the line

December 26, 2012, Posted in The Blog, The Wildlife Comments: One comment

As if to prove how good he is at camouflage, Mr Cuttlefish had chosen to rest in an area of the reef the divers were filming. He went completely undetected for a while, then whilst reeling in the lines the divers were using to act as markers, it was noticed that one of the lines had been laid over Mr Cuttlefish. By the time filming had started he was off, blending in with the reef at a depth of about 8m.

As the camera approached to film him this time, h...

Mr Cuttlefish