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 'Amazing Journeys: Great Migrations' Thursday, March 01, 2001 By Adrian McCoy, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Why do some species migrate? What drives them to travel hundreds or thousands of miles? And how do they find their way? These are some of the questions answered in "Amazing Journeys: Great Migrations," a new film opening Saturday at Carnegie Science Center's Omnimax Theater.
WHERE: Carnegie Science Center, North Side.
WHEN: Tomorrow through July 31.
INFORMATION: 412-237-3400.
The migratory journeys of several species provide some powerful images as they make their way across continents to ensure their species' survival. The film tags along on several of these lengthy road trips, and explores how and why several different species travel such great distances. How some of these journeys happen is in many ways still a mystery.
The 40-minute film was produced by Graphic Films Corp. in collaboration with the Houston Museum of Natural Science. The crew faced many challenges in getting some of this footage. El Nino made things unpredictable for them at several of the locations: Migrating butterflies didn't settle in the spot where they normally would. Heavy rains in Africa affected the zebras' migration patterns.
It opens with a look at the most ambitious of all insect journeys: that of the monarch butterfly. Every year, four generations of monarch butterflies are born in North America. The fourth generation makes an up to 2,500-mile trip to central Mexico, where they spend the winter before heading back north the following year. The film captures amazing shots of millions of fluttering butterflies. Although light as feather, as a group they weigh down the tree branches because of their sheer numbers. Their arrival in Mexico coincides with the Mexican Day of the Dead festival, and legend has it that the butterflies are the spirits of the departed who have returned.
A segment on Canadian geese shows how they use landmarks, the sun and stars, and the magnetic pull of the North Pole to map their annual north-south journeys.
"Amazing Journeys" follows a school of gray whales as they travel from the north Pacific to the shelter of lagoons off the coast of Baja California to give birth. This is the longest of all migrations -- more than 5,000 miles.
The crew encounters one baby whale, who is born too soon and is stranded on shore. The film's underlying message of conservation and stewardship is underlined with the account of how the young whale is rescued, nursed back to health and released.
One of the most visually amazing journeys here is that of the red crab -- a species native only to tiny Easter Island. Hordes overrun the island as they migrate from the forests to the ocean to lay eggs.
The odyssey continues to the East African plains. Zebras, driven by droughts, face many predators on their 500-mile round-trip journey in search of food and water.
The film ends with one last great journey -- that of humankind, and how our own species left the continent of Africa on a one-way trip that covered the entire planet. But in measuring the impact of this huge survival success story, "Amazing Journeys" reminds us of the often-negative impact we've had on other forms of life on Earth.
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