Sunday Review: Earth & Oceans

One thing we know

By Morris Dean

One thing about who we are we know: we evolved from the earliest life forms on Earth. We are, in the deepest sense, children of the Earth, and we are related to Earth's other children. For those interested in a highly readable book about how we know that, I recommend Richard Dawkins's The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution.
    And for a breathtaking view and consideration of life on our planet, you might check out Disneynature's film series that includes Earth (2007) and Oceans (2010).

Unfortunately, either I didn't take notes when I recently watched Earth, or I can't find them, but I remember the narrative of three main animal groups it treated.
    A polar bear and her two cubs emerge from high hibernation to go in search of food. The cubs' father (or a male polar bear at any rate) treks alone in search of his own food, having to swim in the ocean because so much of the Arctic region's ice has melted, swimming so exhaustedly that he might drown. He finally reaches an island of walruses, on whose young he preys with what little energy remains – but preys unsuccessfully, as the huge parents manage to protect their young, and one of the parents stabs the bear's left leg with his (or her) tusk. The exhausted bear lies down to die.
    A large community of bush elephants cross the Kalahari Desert of Africa to find water, the mothers herding their young, who are so famished they would lie down and die but for the prodding. One of these young succumbs to lions one night, the whole incident recorded using infrared light – right up, that is, until the lions drive the child into the dark and the cameramen has the grace not to follow.
    A humpback whale and her young migrate from mid-Atlantic to Antarctica. This young creature is threatened along the way by great white sharks....

I remember that the bonus material (I borrowed the DVD from our local public library) talked about two special cameras the crews employed. One is mounted on the bottom of a helicopter, with remote controls inside the aircraft. This setup enables wide, unimpeded views of animals on the move.
    The other is a camera that can record 1,000 frames per second. I know – sounds impossible, doesn't it? It can capture eighteen seconds of images (18,000 images), and the operator can press a button to indicate which eighteen seconds to capture – the ones that have just passed, the ones about to come, or nine seconds either way. (It sort of sounds as though the camera has some ability to "virtually record" twice 18 seconds of images, but I don't understand its technicalities.) Once the button has been pressed, the camera is inaccessible for 15 minutes while the images are downloaded to a computer. As you can imagine, the extreme slow-motion this camera affords enables you to count the teeth of that shark leaping out of the water with a seal in its mouth....

I took extensive notes on Oceans, in the English-language version of which Pierce Brosnan elegiacally intones over the film's opening images: "A few centuries ago marine mammals ruled...the ocean belonged to them."
    And soon there are thrilling images of a feeding frenzy of dolphins, sharks, and birds on a huge school of sardines – a lengthy sequence whose creation is described in the bonus material. After the excitement subsides: "Plenty of sardines survived...life could go on...."
    And similarly for the unlucky sea turtles born during the day (and helpless to the frigate birds diving to pick them off): "If one in a thousand makes it, the species can go on...."
    ..."All that strength and energy [of the dolphins] depend on a healthy, thriving, and resilient ocean."....

But that health is threatened. About 55 minutes along, enter huge human fishing nets for tuna in the Mediterranean...with all their "by-catch" of unwanted species who die, are injured, discarded...."Though in the space of one human lifetime countless species have been threatened, the ocean fights on. And anyone who knows the sea will tell you of her power."
    At 1:03 along, satellites appear...."The human race reached for the stars and paused to look back at the ocean's blue waters from outer space. We watch her now all the time. We see how she moves and we take her temperature. And when she hurts we can measure her pain." And we see images of pollutants running into the ocean..."spewing poison all around...We have littered the ocean with hundreds of millions of tons of trash...Human indifference is surely the ocean's greatest threat."
    At 1:12 along: "With rising temperatures, massive sections of ice floe are melting away. Arctic waters will soon be open to commercial navigation. What will become of those who live there?"

I reviewed Disneynature's African Cats (2011) and Chimpanzee (2012) on June 1. I have yet to view The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos (2008) and Wings of Life (2011). Two others are in production, according to Disneynature's Wikipedia entry: Bears (2014) and Monkey Kingdom (2015).
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Copyright © 2014 by Morris Dean

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