Discovering the Planet

Discovery Channel’s series "Planet Earth: Portrait of a Planet" has had me completely riveted. The photography is astounding, and I am left awed by the vast and complex systems of life. The show, an eleven-part series, filmed over five years, is roughly divided by ecosystems--Caves, Deserts, Jungles, Shallow Seas, Deep Oceans.

From the Redwoods of California, the oldest living things on the planet, to the Himalayas of China, the tallest mountains in the world, created of limestone (essentially compacted seashells) and thrust into the air by the collision of tectonic plates, from the comical dances of Borneo’s Birds of Paradise, to the habits of Russia’s elusive and almost-extinct Amur leopard, I am amazed by the power, the tenacity and the efficiency of life.

This is no fluffy nature show. It is a comprehensive look at the real worldwide web that is our habitat and the intricate, interlacing systems that allow it to work. As intricate as those systems are, the purpose of it all seems quite simple: it’s all about the children--the survival of the species. In other words, it’s all about life itself.

Anyone who's seen "March of the Penguins," knows the utter extremes the parent penguins go to to ensure their one single egg produces its chick, and that that chick survives to grow and experience its own ordeal to produce its own chick.

Planet Earth takes the principle global, showing the unique extremes to which each species goes to produce young, to send it off with the best possible chance of survival--to promote its species. Sometimes, as with elephants, it takes a herd--that when threatened will form a formidable circle around the calves to keep them safe. Sometimes, as with sea turtles, it isn’t about nurturing, it is about numbers. The turtle lays many eggs in the hope that enough hatchlings, who never see their parents, will make it to the sea and survive to return to the very same beach to themselves breed.

It is heart-wrenching to watch predatory animals stalk and seize their prey. There is no regard for the other’s life, only the singular goal of eating--and feeding their young. It seems brutal to me, but I know it would be just as painful to watch the predators and their offspring starve. As difficult as it is to watch, I am comforted by the fact that animals are not greedy, nor wasteful, nor mean and spiteful. They kill to eat, period. And there is no such thing as a free lunch. From the crabs that clean the ocean bottom to the moths that pollinate the baobabs, each creature gives, as well as takes.

Watching Planet Earth has made me question my own place in the scheme of things. I feel much less "highly evolved." I have realized how little we humans truly understand the planet we call home, and how removing any single component, even the (icky!) cave-dwelling cockroaches which eat bat guano, could have a tremendous, and perhaps grave, consequence--we could, for instance, find ourselves buried in bat guano!