Penguins, parrots, bears, and humans
Not to hurt or humble the animals is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission, to be of service to them whenever they require it. If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.—St. Francis of Assisi
How can we be of service to animals or include them in the shelter of our compassion? Three recent documentaries address this question, obliquely or directly. March of the Penguins suggests that we can learn about the lives of wild creatures and understand that in some ways, as the narrator of the film says, we are not so different from them after all. The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill shows how one human found a way to relate to wild birds and balance respect for their wild natures with the ability to provide help when they needed it. Grizzly Man is a disturbing look at what happens when a human identifies so strongly with wild bears and wants so urgently to help them that he gives his life for the chance to be near them.
The penguins
March
of the Penguins
Warner Independent Pictures and National Geographic Feature Films
Directed by Luc Jacquet
Released 2005
85 minutes
When I went to see March of the Penguins, I didn't know much about penguins. I had a mental image of a creature so absurd it's endearing, a waddling bird/fish in a tuxedo. I found that they have as dramatic a story as any living thing, and display great endurance in carrying out the task of not only surviving but bringing new penguins into the world.
The movie, narrated by Morgan Freeman and based on a story by Luc Jacquet, covers a year in the life of a group of Emperor penguins. We are told at the beginning of the movie that their home, Antarctica, is the darkest, coldest, windiest, driest place on earth. During the relatively warm months of summer, the penguins swim in the cold water and eat fish. With the approach of winter in March, they begin a long trek to their breeding ground, many miles from shore (at least during the colder months when the ice extends out over the water).
At the breeding ground, they pair off in couples; penguins, like some humans, are serially monogamous, pairing off anew each breeding season. After the mother lays an egg, it must be protected from the harsh environment if it is to hatch. Penguins shelter the eggs with their bodies, cradling the eggs on top of their feet and shrouding them with the lower parts of their bodies. One of the severe tests of a couple's parenting skills comes long before the egg hatches: the female must transfer the egg to the male, and quickly, before it has a chance to lose too much heat. When that is accomplished, the female sets off for the ocean again to eat and bring back food for the baby that will hatch while she is gone. The males hunker down to endure most of the long cold winter alone, keeping the eggs warm.
The film makes it plain that penguins are winnowed out of the race to reproduce at every stage. There are more females than males, so not everyone finds a mate. Not every pair manages to successfully transfer the egg from female to male. Not every father makes it through the winter. Not every mother evades the hungry seals and comes back with food. Not every hatchling survives the cold and the predators. Every ungainly velvety gray chick waddling around on the ice looks like a lucky miracle of survival.
The narrative talks of the mother, father, and baby as a family, but they don't really spend much time together. The fathers head for the water as soon as the mothers get back, because they desperately need to eat. Then the parents take turns going to the water and staying with the babies. At the end of the first year, the babies are old enough to be on their own. At first I thought that calling the three penguins a family was a somewhat strained analogy, because the penguins are so different from human families. But if you think of families as groups of individuals whose purpose is to rear a new generation of their kind, then I guess these penguin groupings qualify. And there's certainly no reason that the way they do it should be like the way we do it. The undertaking requires what looks to me like trust, patience, perseverance, and affection.
It's hard telling what it looks like to the penguins, though. I don't know the degree to which they're responding to instinct or hormones in caring for their young (but then how much of love between people is mediated by hormones?). I'm not sure how much sense we can make of the idea that the penguins are brave or loving, and I hesitate to assume that that they are like us when I just don't know. It was surprising, though, how human some of their behavior seemed. There was a moment when the hungry males, nurturing their offspring while besieged by violent winter storms, first hear the approach of the returning females. Every head lifts and turns at the same instant; I've seen similar moments in human crowds. And the noises they made were surprisingly expressive. Early in the journey to the breeding ground, one penguin slid down a slope and into the back of another penguin, who turned to deliver what sounded for all the world like an irritated scolding. When the camera watched one couple fumble their egg transfer, the penguins made low mournful noises as the doomed egg froze.
This movie left me much more aware of some of the other rhythms of life that are going on all over the planet. It fosters a sense of kinship with other lives even though they're very different from anything we could possibly experience for ourselves. Maybe you've seen the software that shows you on a map which parts of the earth are sunlit; I've been watching how the distribution of sunlight is changing as we move toward northern-hemisphere fall. I don't like to see the light retreating toward the south, but as I watch the white bulk of Antarctica touched by the returning sun, I think of those penguins and I'm glad their long vigil is nearly over.
