Response #5 – Undisturbed Ocean

Most people have seen, or at least heard of, the Planet Earth series that aired on the Discovery Channel. Since its television showing, it has become quite popular to own as well; apparently educational shows aren’t just for nerds anymore. It’s quite enjoyable to see so many animals in their natural environment, behaving as if there isn’t a camera spying on their every move. I think it peaks human interest to see what happens when they haven’t yet populated a place. For this very reason, I’ve grown particularly fond of the ‘Deep Ocean’ episode, in which you see footage of creatures that look very alien in nature.

On almost every piece of land on the planet, there are people. People eventually grow accustom to the animals that are native to the part of the worth that they live in. I think this is the reason that the ocean’s creatures interest me so much; deep-sea animals are still so new and so vast, that its hard to believe they exist on the same planet. I have begun to wonder though, since I began this class, when we will start to see the effects of people on the deep ocean. Will we see them at all? We know so little of that place as it is, will be really be able to tell what inadvertant damage we are causing?

In an article that I responded to, scientists were taking samples from whales around the world to see if they were being affected by man-made chemicals in the ocean. Their findings were conclusive that these whales were in fact having raised levels of said chemicals. Surely our polluting reach must reach down to the lower depths of the water, and it seems like we don’t really have any idea to what extent.