When the Homily is about Immunology

More Marching

Last evening my eldest daughter and I sat down and watched "March of the Penguins." What an amazing story! So if you've not seen it, let me give you a little synopsis: first you must always keep in mind the unfathomably brutal weather that these birds etch an existance out of. Ok, so their only source of food is found in the water, but in order to keep their newborns relatively safe from predators they march "inland" to their breeding grounds which (depending on the brutality of any particular winter) can be more than 70 miles away. Once there they find a mate and sometime later an egg is produced. Then, the mothers hand off the egg to Dad and he is left in charge with the egg in order for the Mother (who by this point is quite hungry) to march back to the water and feed. The Fathers huddle together with their eggs to keep warm in an amazing display of communal survival, and in this way they try and bear the brunt of winter without any food.

Eventually the Mothers somehow realize it is time to march back (remember: 70 miles) with full bellies ready to feed the newborn chicks who will hopefully not hatch too soon before Mom arrives back at the breeding ground. Once the Moms do arrive, Dad gets to make the march back to water - having been without food for nearly four months! Now you can imagine that any number of things can go wrong within this rather complex dance of life, thereby bringing it to a screeching halt. I truly was amazed at how this system of roles came to be - clearly it is all absolutely neccesary in the harsh environment that they call home.

Now you may recall there was a little controversy with regard to this film because some "family values" type folks were touting it as an example of...well...of family values. Naturally (I suppose) those who are offended by those particular family values were quick to point out that some Emperor Penguins are homosexual. Now, I really don't know if this is true or not, the film notes that there are always more females than males and so I assume that if there are homosexual Emperor Penguins they would in fact be gay Empress Penguins. In which case, who stays at home with the egg and who gets to go get food first???? :)

Anyway, it is striking to see how ingrained the roles are in these animals. How do they know how to find the breeding ground? How do they instinctively know that the ladies head off for food first and that the men stay behind to preserve the egg? What would happen if a particular Dad decided he wanted to go and eat first...well...as it is, for the sake of survival the Penguins have no such luxury of stepping outside of their roles. I suppose those that do, don't get very far in their societal experimentation (they certainly don't have their genes propagated).

There are only two places in the world were Emperor Penguins are kept in captivity, and I was forced to wonder how these creatures adapted their roles in such a leisurely environment? I did a little looking around to see if I could find out anything, and all I could find is that they are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity and this little tidbit from the World Almanac for Children: In captivity the king and emperor penguins normally do not learn to pick up their own food, and after they have been taught to feed by strenuous forced feeding they must be fed by hand each day.

Given the complexity of their rituals and roles and how much those things are seemingly a part of their nature, I would imagine that capitivty plays havoc with their psyche. If I could, I would ask the captive Penguins: Are you happy?

And correspondingly I would ask us: Are we happy? Has a life of leisure played havoc with our psyche?