From what appeared in this documentary, I now believe Madagascar to be one of the most interesting places in the world. As was mentioned within the movie, this island, which is the fourth largest, is referred to as a species factory. This video goes into depth about mainly the lemurs on the island, the changing climate and it’s impact on the environment. In my opinion, this film wholly portrayed just how unique of a destination this island really is. This video went into great detail about how the evolution of lemurs has evolved throughout the span of time. Interestingly enough the film revealed this time all began 60 million years ago. I thought it was fascinating how lemurs are to be considered “pre-monkies.” A couple specific species of
Since they are critically endangered conservation efforts are now put into action. The main reasons why they are endangered are because a growing amount of tourists who visit the secluded island are thought to hunt the sloths. The cutting of their habitat also plays a factor in their endangerment. Their habitat, which consists of mangroves are their only means of survival in the island. It’s ...
The inspiring documentary film, E.O. Wilson—Of Ants and Men, showcases biologist Edward Osborne Wilson’s passion for preserving the biodiversity of our natural world. E.O. Wilson not only values the fascinating creatures (particularly ants) that he comes across during his research and in his daily life, but he also takes action and participates in the Gorongosa Restoration Project at Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique, Africa. The destruction of Gorongosa demonstrates the call for us—Homo sapiens—to realize how critical it is to concern ourselves with protecting the very ecosystems that have molded us into the complex species that we are; according to E.O. Wilson, “We adapted over millions of years to wild environments…We really need them” (CITE?). The better effort we make to understand that we are a part of this large, interdependent ecological community, the better equipped we become in not only being
All problems for this island arose with the introduction of humans. According to fossil records, humans arrived approximately 2000 years ago. With their arrival came destruction, a destruction that would continue until present day. They were not aware of their actions at the time and how they would forever change the ecosystem of Madagascar.
: The Plesiadapiforms are tiny mouse like creatures that lived during the 10 million period between the extinction of dinosaurs and appearance of humans. This could be our primate ancient ancestor. This primate has around more than 120 different species of its kind.
David Attenborough’s The Life of Mammals: Meat Eaters and Steve Irwin’s Africa’s Deadliest Snakes are wildlife documentaries that have similar but different purposes. Attenborough uses a script that is rehearsed and the natural environment is followed, Irwin does not have a script and the animals are disturbed. However, both hosts inform the audience of the animal and how they function. Attenborough achieves this through the use of language and Irwin achieves this by being the presenter. Purpose, audience, context, language and form will be compared between the two texts.
...hat make it real and separate it from the dangerous possibilities of nature. It is not to say that Disney’s Kilamanjaro Safari is naturalistically correct or incorrect; it is a representation, and not a reproduction of the true African savanna. How can nature be surpassed, you ask? Disney. That’s how.
David Attenborough’s The Life of Mammals: Meat Eaters and Steve Irwin’s Africa’s Deadliest Snakes are wildlife documentaries that have similar yet different purposes. Attenborough’s has a script that is rehearsed and the natural environment is followed. Irwin’s does not have a script and the animals are picked up. However, both hosts inform the audience of the animal and how they function. Attenborough achieves this through the use of language and Irwin achieves this by being a presenter. Purpose, audience, context, language and form will be compared between the two texts.
Thanks to evolution, Penguins have evolved into a group of aquatic, fightless birds, that are highly adapted to life in the ocean. This not only makes them one of the divergent and strange species of birds, but also has allowed them to become such a sucessful species. Penguins are mostly located in the Southern hemisphere ranging anywhere from the Galapogos to the Antartic. Throughout their lives, Penguins spend around half their time in the ocean doing things such as catching food and the other half on land raising their young. Their distinct tuxedo-like apperience called countershading camoflages their bodies, protecting them from predators above and below. Through out the “stepping stones”, the penguins grew to have a dense bone containing
Would you prefer vacationing in a dense jungle or a scorching hot desert? Thankfully, I have had the privilege to do both. Over the past year, I have traveled to the beautiful rainforests of Costa Rica and the barren wilderness of Bonaire. By studying the parallels and differences of both destinations, one has the ability to understand the travel expectations, habitats, and activities of Costa Rica and Bonaire.
It is within those years that they discover the different ways that imagination and humanity can alter the way you think. Halberstam brings up this point within a lengthy analysis of the movie March of the Penguins. At first view this film is simply documentary of a group of penguins as the mothers leave to find food and the fathers stayed to protect the eggs. At first glance, this is true. But Halberstam presents a second interpretation. She states that “Most often we project human worlds onto the supposedly blank slate of animality, and then we create the animals we need in order to locate our own human behaviors in ‘nature’ or ‘the wild’ or ‘civilization’” (275). This idea changes the way we think about most man-made documentaries, showing how we don’t just document the animals, but we add our own human narrative to them. Enforcing ideas such as authority, gender roles, and even heterosexuality. That may seem like a stretch to some. But Halberstam states that we use these animals to study these ideas. To directly quote “Animated animals allow us to explore ideas about humanness” (276). What exactly does she mean by this statement? She uses the term animated to describe these penguins. But to any movie-goer who has seen this film know that it follows a group of real live penguins. Her use of the word animated in this case describes what it is like to be
The Great Barrier Reef is one of the seven natural wonders of the world. It is understandable why so many people travel such great distances to witness this eye appealing miracle of nature. They come to see the many species, such as fish, coral, and other marine and bird life. There is no doubt that tourists who visit here will never forget their experience.
“The Rise of the Planet of the Apes” was a very good movie to watch, I would recommend this movie to other students taking this class. The movie portrayed primates in the way we learned about them in class although some of their behaviors and characteristics were not always true to what we learned. The movie did do a good job with showing the categories that primates have although some of their behaviors were exaggerated.
they also live in other types of forests in Madagascar. Lemurs can only be found living in
Deforestation for agricultural or logging purposes and the overexploitation of non-timber products can be due to driving factors such as the nation’s population growth, poverty, low levels of education and the nation’s political unstable situation (Kremen et al., 1998). As human population grows the demand for land, agriculture, timber and non-timber products and income grows. More people need to extract from natural resources to provide for their basic needs, and this is happening in and around Masoala National Park as the human population of Madagascar continues to grow (Worldometers, 2017). Poverty can also lead to anthropogenic pressures on the natural environment. Local communities will continue with slash-and-burn agriculture, illegal logging and harvesting of non-timber products as they benefit from these different forms of (illegal) resource use. Local communities in and around Masoala National Park often depend on its natural resources, either directly as they provide in their basic needs or indirectly as it can generate income (Ormsby and Kaplin, 2005). Poverty is often related to low levels of education, which is also the case in Madagascar. Generally, the educational attainment in Madagascar is low and adult illiteracy remains high (Fritz-Vietta et al., 2011; Ormsby and Mannle, 2006). In underdeveloped countries where educational levels are low people often depend on forms of agriculture as their main source of income. For many people living in Madagascar slash-and-burn agriculture constitutes the most important source of income (Fritz-Vietta et al., 2011). Since the farmers in Masoala National Park have low levels of education they are often not able to enter alternative working fields and obtain an income from other sources than agriculture. A politically unstable situation can also be a driving force that leads to certain anthropogenic
Traveling south across the forests below, and hopefully for the last time, cause me to instantly relive my first trip north across the rain forests of Kalimantan. I can still remember the thrill the first time I soared across this island called Borneo. The forests and mountains were breathtaking and within a few hours I would enter a world that is as miraculous and as it is mysterious. The unimaginable species of flora and fauna, the wonders and dangers of the jungle, and the secrets of a primitive people being lost as they evolve into a modern society are just a few of the countless thoughts that filled my mind. But now my mind darts between regret and relief as hectare after hectare of forest disappear from my view. The last seven months are as an eternity; a life lived and forgotten and now replaced with a new one. Only a few more hours and I will be returning to the world I know. What I once thought as excessive and pretentious is now a world of opportunity and fortune. How fickle and near-sighted, or maybe just naïve and spoiled I was, and probably still am. However, amidst all this uncertainty of past, present, and future, I feel at peace, or maybe just relieved."