No So Pacific

Review by Bill Doughty

Shortfin Mako Shark (PBS)

Mako sharks, designed by natural selection to make fast out-of-nowhere attacks; carnivorous plants that "developed an appetite for meat;" predatory vultures and feral dogs that feed on baby turtles; "meteorological monsters" that destroy by wind and rain; and the wolf eel whose jaws crush armored food prey.

When sharks circle you, close their mouths, lower their dorsal fins and disappear, "you need to get out of the water."

The Pacific (peaceful) Ocean, so named by Ferdinand Magellan, is not so peaceful after all – above and below the surface, within the reefs and even ashore.

In the gorgeous companion picture book to the Public Broadcasting System's documentary series of the same name author Rebecca Tansley captures the passionate, voracious, mysterious, violent but ultimately wonderful world's largest ocean in "Big Pacific" (2017, Princeton University Press).

Other dangers at sea exist in poisonous Red lionfish, great white sharks, peppered moray eel (which hunts for its food ashore), saltwater crocodiles and invasive species, "intricate intruders," like fan worms and Nomura's jellyfish, expanding to other regions thanks to overfishing, pollution and other growing impacts of humans.

Zero threat, now a habitat. (PBS)

Indeed, humans are one of the biggest dangers to life in the region, especially since World War II, when war raged from Hawaii and Midway to the South Pacific and throughout the western Pacific.

"One relic of these violent times now rests peacefully below the waves above which it once wreaked havoc. This 'Mitsubishi Zero' – the same type of plane as used at Pearl Harbor – was likely landed at sea off the coast of New Guinea after its pilot became lost and ran out of fuel. The 'Zero' or 'Zeke,' was an exceptionally agile and speedy fighter plane. Between 1937 and 1945 the Japanese built 11,500 of these aircraft and they became the plane of choice for Japan's notorious 'kamikaze' suicide pilots – young volunteers who would fly their planes directly into enemy ships. This plane, however, was destined for a different future. The small cockpit in which its pilot once guided the aircraft towards a controlled sea landing has found new life as a marine community. Eventually it will be claimed entirely by the sea, becoming a plane-shaped reef of coral and sponges, giving life in exchange for those it may once have taken."

In the 1950s, the United States tested a hydrogen bomb 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and today scientists are studying the effects over generations of sea life at the genetic level. Humans are also responsible for plastic pollution and overfishing. Some primitive societies fish with explosives, which is particularly damaging to the ecosystem, including precious coral.

But the U.S. Navy, working closely with the U.S. Coast Guard, is now part of the solution, particularly in the Oceania Maritime Security Initiative to enforce treaties and laws at sea, including fishing laws. USS Michael Murphy (DDG 112) recently completed an OMSI initiative before returning to its homeport in Pearl Harbor.

U.S. Navy photo by MC3 Jasen Morenogarcia of a U.S. Coast Guard inspector with USS Michael Murphy on an OMSI mission in March, 2018.

Nature has seen an evolution of species in the Pacific that is mind-boggling. Look at the frogfish (such as the one at left) as one example – strange camouflage, different colors, using a lure to attract other fish as prey.

Coconut crabs climb trees, Darwin's so-called "finches" evolve to small niches in order to survive, Galapagos's marine iguanas expel salt through their noses, and Shedao pit vipers set elaborate patient-but-powerful traps to feed on songbirds.

Endangered dugong.

This book offers amazing photographs and insightful prose as a complement to the PBS series.

We see the secrets, mysteries and wonderment of whale sharks, humpback whales and blue whales, tree lobsters of Lord Howe Island, firefly squid, Chambored nautilus, Chinese white dolphins, Olive ridley turtles, grunion, dugong "mermaids," and yellow-eyed penguins.

Then there's the humble White spotted pufferfish. The stay-at-home male builds and decorates an artistic circular nest (below) as part of the species' elaborate mating ritual. Then the male stays to guard the fertilized eggs.



Evolution is the ultimate artist and, in the author's opinion, a hope for the future as scientists discover more mysteries and reveal more truths about how life develops, adapts and survives in a changing environment.

Lionfish (PBS)

"We would do well to remember that the ocean is the evolutionary cradle from which our distant ancestors first crawled from millions of years ago. Although we may now consider ourselves masters of that watery universe that birthed not just us but all life, we still have much to learn from it, and our tenure on Earth grows ever more tenuous the more we ignore our impact on the ocean. The truth is we humans are merely scratching at the surface of the Big Pacific. Beneath its waves, an ocean of secrets awaits us."

The Big Pacific is a place to appreciate the diversity of life on our precious planet and perhaps find greater humility.