Response #15: Below the Deep Blue

Alastair Fothergill’s BBC nature documentary called The Blue Planet explores the diversity of the world’s oceans.  These aquatic creatures are two goals in mind: eat and mate.  They accomplish these goals by using the earth’s natural terrain and the current to locate large amounts of plankton and other food.  This is just one example of how these creatures have adapted to survive in their unpredictable habitat.  Other types of fish use floating kelp as a refuge, when the kelp is not around, they have become extremely resourceful in the way they use human trash as a substitute shelter.  Of course this trash has many negative effects, but some animals have adapted to survive when possible.

The Blue Planet series is intriguing for young and old.  The sea is a vast, mysterious place in which little is known about.  At the time the footage was filmed, 2001, the quality would have been excellent.  However, at current it does not compete with other nature documentaries.  Overall I enjoyed the topics of the episodes I watched, but it was clear the narrator/producer did not make an effort to jazz up the topics and images presented.  For the purpose of this class, I would be interested to know more about how garbage and other human pollutants affect the aquatic ecosystem.  The world’s bodies of water are diverse and vast, but they are far from invincible.

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