Paradise, for some, is simply
an empty beach on a Caribbean island.
But for wild creatures this is not
a destination, but a dividing line.
Here the tranquil inland world
comes to an end and a far more
complex and surprising one begins.
Vast coral reefs and sandy plains
shimmer beneath
the crystal Caribbean Sea.
And the tropical sun illuminates
an array of living jewels.
Here are creatures rare and fantastic.
Here are figments of our nightmares
and flights of wonderful fancy
from our dreams.
In waters famed for hidden treasure,
another kind of wealth is
stunningly abundant.
Here, immersed in beauty and
subtle mystery, we now discover
the JEWELS OF THE CARIBBEAN SEA.
The largest living structures
on planet Earth are controlled from
outer space.
Every year, with uncanny precision,
the orbiting moon somehow
sets in motion the process of spawning
in coral reefs throughout the world.
The same response occurs at different
times in great coral reef systems
from the Red Sea to the Pacific
and greater Caribbean.
Tiny bundles of brain coral eggs
and sperm rise like miniature moons.
Millions of them flood the sea.
Different species of coral
respond in different ways.
Some corals are hermaphroditic
and release packages
that contain both eggs and sperm.
Other types release them separately.
It is all unbelievably
subtle and complex.
The great blooming mass of eggs
and sperm floats to the surface
where the eggs will be
fertilized and become larvae.
The larvae will drift,
sometimes for many weeks,
Before setting to be bottom and
perhaps beginning a new reef
a hundred miles away.
The result of a few minute coral
larvae given thousands of years
to grow and reproduce can be this
a city in the sea the glory
of the Caribbean.
It is home to creatures
as tiny as a single bacteria
as huge as the manta ray.
Coral reefs may be hundreds of feet
thick, many miles in length.
They are by far the largest structures
created by living creatures.
Yet they are made almost entirely from
the skeletons of tiny coral polyps,
some the size of a single pearl.
The living coral grows about
half an inch a year.
It lies upon the skeletons of
dead coral, layer upon layer.
Along the edge of the reef we are
seeing growth that took
thousands of years.
Twenty feet down we are on the reef
that Columbus might have seen.
At 85 feet we are
in the time of Christ.
At 180 feet we have reached
the time of the pyramids.
Around the reef great predators roam.
A Caribbean reef shark snaps up
the weak and the unwary.
These swift killers don't always
prevail. In slow motion a small snapper
makes a quick turn,
tumbles down the shark's back,
and slips off its tail.
Those that escape a shark may fall
victim to a black grouper.
But the coral city is a community of
strange alliances where the threat
of sudden death can be
mysteriously suspended.
This coral head is a special place.
It's called a cleaning station.
Tiny cleaner gobies cluster
near the base of the coral head.
The tiger grouper often visits here.
Trusting in an ancient and
mysterious relationship,
the gobies do not hesitate
at the tiger's mouth.
The gobies are allowed to crawl
all over,
feeding on parasites and dead tissue.
In return, every inch of the grouper
is sanitized and groomed.
Other cleaners have other clients.
This Pederson shrimp,
waving its white antennae,
is issuing an invitation
and is accepted by a Nassau grouper.
Cleaning is a striking example
of symbiotic behavior.
As a result of its service,
the cleaner is fed.
And the fish that is cleaned
is healthier as a result.
But researchers suspect that
the simple pleasure it provides
is also important a sensuous interval
in the struggle to survive.
The shrimp is allowed
astonishing liberties.
It crawls through the delicate gills
in search of tiny parasites
that irritate the host.
On the reef many creatures may not
travel more than a few inches
in their entire lives.
But others are visitors creatures
who have come here on journeys
of thousands of miles.
During these winter months,
parts of the Caribbean fill
with the music of humpback whales.
The whales come here
from far to the north.
Little or no feeding takes place
during the several months
they stay here.
Males give themselves to fighting
for the right to escort a females,
and females are giving birth and caring for their calves.
In early spring they'll head back
north as far as Greenland
and Barffin Island one of
the greatest migrations in the ocean.
In a winter storm a hundred years ago,
a steel sailing ship
carrying molasses
from Caribbean plantations
sank here on Little Bahama bank.
Drifting coral larvae have settled
on the wreck,
and a new reef city is being born.
Coral polyps absorb calcium from
seawater,
which they use to create
the hard structures that make up
a reef home for a new community
of jewel-like inhabitants.
From its den beneath the collapsed bow
of the wreck, a
loggerhead turtle
emerges to greet a new day.
Turtles, like whales, are tied
to the surface by their need for air.
The loggerhead must breathe
every 30 minutes or so.
Then he continues this leisurely
but unrelenting search for food.
The slipper lobster has sacrificed
speed for the protection
of camouflage.
Not exactly lightning fast himself,
the loggerhead relies on persistence
and his powerful jaws.
Above the wreck,
swifter predators are waiting.
The barracuda hovers around
the reef most of the day.
Smaller fish tend to ignore it.
But everything can change
in an instant if it gets hungry.
The highly maneuverable yellowtail
snapper can sometimes
avoid becoming a meal.
These waters also swarm with
ballyhoo often not as fortunate.
This is one of the most intelligent
creatures on the reef
the Caribbean reef squid.
It is a creature from another world.
Their skins are alive
with signals of great sophistication.
Not only can they warm that a predator
is near, but they can even
distinguish one predator from another.
Males competing for the affections of
a female engage in a kind of
visual combat, displaying
spectacular colors and patterns.
No damage is done,
the contest is highly ritualized.
Squid & courtship is also very visual
a synchronized and
extravagant display.
The actual mating however,
is so brief, it's almost invisible.
The male lunges at the female with
a special arm,
attaching to her a packet of sperm.
The female can take her time deciding
if she will accept the packet for
self-fertilization or later
get rid of it,
rejecting it in favor of another.
In spring many reef creatures
are breeding.
Excited schools of mating fish dance
frenetically and animate
the placid Caribbean.
After mating, the male yellowhead
jawfish is left by himself
with the fertilized eggs.
He has them in his mouth,
spitting them out from time to time
to aerate them.
For five days he'll continue
his tender vigil until
the baby jawfish finally hatch.
Hundreds of Cerole wrasse school in
long columns as they migrate
every day across the reef.
They are deadly marauders, attacking
new generations of other fish.
Parrotfish are spawning,
and the arriving Creole wrasse
rush in to gorge themselves.
They eat the eggs the moment they are
released by the female parrotfish.
Thousands of eggs vanish
in a few seconds, but inevitably
some escape and a few tiny parrotfish
survivors will inherit the reef.
The Creole wrasse stop
by a cleaning station.
A juvenile Spanish hogfish
fearlessly takes them on.
It dashes from wrasse to wrasse
checking for parasites.
Requesting to be cleaned,
the Creole wrasse stand on their head.
Then, as the hogfish moves on,
the next wrasse dashes eagerly to
the head of the line
The smoke rising from this barrel
sponge is a dense cloud of sperm.
When a sponge starts to spawn,
it triggers a chain reaction
along the reef as others of the same
species hurry to mix their spawn.
The sea is as warm
with their fertility.
High over the teeming city,
clouds are gathering.
This is a springtime swarm
of thimble jellies.
Ninety-five percent water, without
brains or complex nervous systems,
they are little more than fragments
of the sea itself.
Each is the size of a thumbnail.
Thimble jellyfish are armed with
stinging cells
that carry a mild venom.
But this doesn't seem to discourage
many inhabitants of the reef.
The clouds of thimble jellies
drift out into the open sea
and into the haunt of giants.
Sperm whales spend most of their days
diving far underwater
where they hunt for squid.
They surface every 45 minutes or so
to breathe and bask
in the Caribbean sun.
But not all sperm whales
plunge into the deep.
Newborn calves lack the endurance
to make these epic dives
and must wait near the surface
for their mothers to return to them.
This calf lools in a gentle sea as his
mother descends a quarter of a mile.
As she soars through the darkness
and searches undersea canyons
far below him in pursuit of squid,
he can still hear
her familiar sonar clicks.
Fearless and playful, the lone
baby whale turns and spins, exploring
the dexterity of his great body in the
weightless freedom of oceanic space.
He is covered with remoras,
harmless companions who cling to him
for a spectacular free ride.
When he learns to dive,
they will probably leave him,
unable to stand the cold
and pressure of the abyss.
The baby whale hears his mother
returning and joins her to explore
their favorite waters deep channels
off volcanic islands in the Caribbean.
They swim by islands packed with more
and more hotels and holiday homes.
Seemingly lush and abundant, Caribbean
ecosystems are very vulnerable
to the tourists who come here.
To make room for them,
native vegetations is stripped away.
Over the years ecosystems disappear
and so do the creatures
that inhabit them on land
and in the sea.
The dark patches behinds the shelter
of the reef are prairies of turtle grass.
They cover hundreds of square miles
of the shallow banks.
This is home to a manatee.
Once great numbers of
these gentle undersea mammals
grazed here.
How the sight of one is
like encountering a lone buffalo
on the midwestern prairie.
Remoras cling to the manatee.
They get food from its waste.
The lone manatee probably gains
nothing but companionship.
The gentle stately manatee
faces many dangers.
Today, its greatest enemy
is probably pollution.
Easy targets for a harpoon, manatees
once were hunted almost to extinction,
and poachers still take them
when they can.
Only the tip of the snout
is exposed while breathing.
Manatees are highly vulnerable to
being hit by motor boats and jet skis.
Many bear propeller scars
and many die of their wounds.
When manatees are not feeding,
they are often sleeping.
Despite the camera,
this one is just dropping off.
There he's fast asleep,
oblivious to the tide of change
sweeping away his world.
The manatee's fate,
and that of dozens of other species,
depends largely on strangers
who pass this way briefly
and travel in splendid isolation.
Few of these travelers are aware of
their fatal impact on the wonders
all about them, great and small.
The reef at night.
Many fish sleep. This redtail
parrotfish slumbers with eyes open,
lying on her side on the coral.
As a prelude to mating,
a spiny lobster male gently caresses
the carapace of a female.
Lobster larvae, when they are born,
look like spun glass.
The spiny lobster female helps
her tiny larvae into the world.
She agitates her tail to help
move them out into the current.
By the thousands the tiny larvae
drift past their mother's eye,
never to be seen by her again.
Larvae, eggs, plankton, and tiny fish
all drift out from the reef,
a dazzling assortment of creatures
cast with seeming carelessness
onto the sea wind.
This is a venomous sea wasp. Its
stinging tentacles find larval fish,
which are quickly anesthetized
and consumed.
Reef squid lie in wait for
passing fish and crustaceans.
And out of the darkness
a giant manta ray joins the feast.
The manta loops to stay in the area
most dense with plankton.
It's maneuver as graceful as
it is efficient.
The arms on either side of her face
are cephalic lobes
that channel plankton into
a foot-wide mouth.
Her wings span six feet and
she weights several hundred pounds.
All night the eerie feast of
plankton will go on.
Out on the prairie a pearlfish
stands on its head,
mimicking the surrounding
turtle grass.
Camouflage makes it almost invisible.
This unappealing animal
is a sea cucumber.
It consumes sediments,
which are filtered internally for
digestible bits of organic matter.
It is also home for the pearlfish.
when in danger, the pearlfish
Locates the rear end of the sea
cucumber with its nose.
Then it inserts its sharply
tapered tail and slips back into
the cucumber's anus to reach
a safe hiding place in the intestine.
The pearlfish obviously benefits.
But what's in it for the sea cucumber,
if anything, is not known.
Comes a sultry Caribbean dawn,
and the placid sea gives no hint
Of the night's events.
A baby loggerhead turtle emerges from
the sand to greet its first day.
It begins a life that could last more
than 60 years,
or just a few minutes.
Turtles produce abundant young,
but only a few will survive
to carry on their species.
The baby heads instinctively
for its ocean home.
If a female, she may return to
this very beach to lay her own eggs
in 25 years or so.
If a male,
he will never again leave the water.
Now the baby turtle must cross
the reef and make its way to
the open ocean.
It's a dangerous crossing.
Predators gather quickly when the sea
is full of hatching turtles.
But this turtle is lucky.
After 36 hours of nonstop swimming,
the hatchling finds shelter.
It will spend its first year near
the sargassum fronds, later head north,
then eastward across the Atlantic
to the Azores and the Canary Islands.
The flotsam of the sea accumulates
where ocean currents converge.
Sargassum weed and other drifting plant
and animal life also gather here,
along with an increasing mass of
human rubbish.
Jellyfish congregate here too,
and one is the first meal
for the newly hatched loggerhead.
These waters often teem with jellyfish
and some of them are
voracious predators.
This large stinging cauliflower
has captured several moon jellies.
They are helpless
in its deadly tentacles.
The medusa fish may be resistant to
the cauliflower's stinging cells
or just incredibly nimble.
It feeds on scraps and leftovers from
the cauliflower's meals
and uses the broad bell as
a personal magic carpet.
Convergent currents drive
moon jellyfish together
by the tens of thousands.
Their translucent bodies form
a gently pulsing cathedral in the sea.
The sargassum weed is a safe nursery
for many Caribbean reef fish.
Spawned on the reef, schools of
baby fish hide here in the open sea
until they are old enough to return
to their more hazardous home.
A loggerhead turtle
is hunting for lobster.
The lobster uses its spiny antennae.
They are covered with sharp barbs
and the lobster aims them
at the turtle's eyes
with uncanny accuracy.
Eventually the loggerhead discouraged
and returns to his home in the wreck.
In a long, slow-paced life,
one lobster more or less
makes little difference.
Adult loggerheads lead settled lives.
They hunt by day and at night
usually hole up to sleep
in a favorite crevice.
Another turtle, a hawksbill,
is on the prowl.
She eats sponges.
She spends her days searching out
the varieties she likes best.
When she finds one, she contents
herself with just a few bites
and then moves on.
The sponge will survive.
Its tissue will heal and later
the turtle will be back for more.
For the French angelfish the sponge
is now an easy meal,
because the turtle has torn through
its outer layer.
But this sponge has a defender.
Some damselfish are farmers.
They cultivate patches of algae
on sponges that they rely on for food.
Although the queen angelfish is
many times the size of a damsel,
the little fish is unrelenting.
It will attack almost anything
to protect the algae farm.
Other kinds of algae have changed
the face of the Caribbean.
As they grow, several species
concentrate calcium in their tissues.
When they die, the calcified skeletons
of these plants decompose
and become find sand.
It's known for its delicate grain
and brilliant whiteness.
After thousands of years this sand has
created sand banks that can stretch
for miles between and shore.
Plains of this and other types of sand
are scattered throughout the Caribbean.
Seemingly barren deserts,
they are home for many creatures
that specialize in concealment
and camouflage.
A male peacock flounder
has excellent eyesight.
He watches from a high sand mound,
trying to spot a mate.
At last, a female.
He confronts her
and displays his long pectoral fin.
Seducing her will not be easy.
The female is not sufficiently
impressed. He must try again.
He displays all the signals
proper for his species,
but still she is unresponsive.
A cold fish indeed.
A curious mutton snapper butts
in just as the reluctant female
begins to show some interest.
Finally she responds.
It all ends with a single exquisite
shiver and a tiny puff of spawn.
During the long summer day
the voices of dolphins
can often be heard
across the sandy plains.
These are Atlantic spotted dolphin.
Like other mammals, dolphin babies
are nourished by mother's milk,
which is squirted into their mouths
under pressure.
Baby spotted dolphins don't develop
their spots for a few years.
Dolphins are social and very
intelligent animals,
and their private lives are
highly visible here in the open.
These dolphins relax here
after a night of vigorous hunting.
During the day the look for flounder
and razorfish that lie concealed
on the bottom.
The dolphin's sensitive sonar
can locate prey partially buried
in the sand.
Once discovered, a small fish
has little chance to escape.
Dolphin's are extremely
efficient hunters.
They are very playful and have
plenty of time to fool around.
Like chimpanzees
and other intelligent mammals,
they often reinforce their
social bonds with sexual behavior.
What starts as gentle foreplay
soon turns to mating.
Dolphins mate belly to belly.
The large gray dolphins here are
male bottlenose dolphins
a completely different species.
Female spotted dolphins pet
the bottlenoses and coax them to play.
Soon this becomes a sensual frenzy.
The two species will mate, an event
only recently recorded in the wild.
As a result there may be hybrid young,
but they will probably be sterile
and have no offspring of their own.
Dolphins show hyper-sexuality
in captivity
and this is often attributed
to boredom.
But films like this confirm that they
are also highly sexual
in the wild.
It has never been demonstrate that
dolphins have language as we know it.
But these dolphin vocalizations,
slowed down six times,
show just how much
information could be conveyed
by their intricate sounds.
The dolphin language, if any,
remains an unsolved riddle to science.
Whatever their meaning, dolphin sounds
are rich and varied, an essential part
of their social lives and an
expression of their soaring spirit.
For weeks in summer the dolphins'
playground is mirror-still,
a warm and crystal sea
seemingly frozen in time.
Then, finally, the long summer ends
when the first winter storm clouds
start to gather over the reef.
The jewels of the Caribbean
take shelter.
As winter arrives among the creatures
that seek safety and security
on the reef is the spiny lobster.
Lobsters group together and dash for
the safety of deep water
at the edge of the reef.
They are in the open here,
vulnerable to predators,
so speed equals survival.
One lobster takes the lead,
seeking the shortest course
to the protection of the reef.
Each following lobster uses
its antennae to engage the one ahead.
Like racing cars,
they take advantage of the draft.
The train of lobsters makes the trip
faster than one could traveling alone.
Their trek ends at the reef.
Here they find calm water
protected from storms.
Spreading out over the reef,
each will find a sheltering hole
or crevice that will serve as
its winter home.
Another winter visitor
has only just arrived.
Returning to this city in the sea,
humpback whales have
come back from the north.
A mother humpback whale is sleeping.
Her newborn calf snuggles
under her chin.
Calves spend their days playing,
nursing, and just basking
in an ocean filled with
the songs of whales.
The Caribbean is an ideal nursery
for the baby humpbacks.
They're 12 to 14 feet long
at birth and grow very quickly.
They'll each take up to 50 gallons of
milk a day and soon be strong enough
to make the long journey north.
The round trip is over 8,000 miles.
Once these humpback whales were
hunted almost to extinction.
Only a hundred or so wintered in the Caribbean.
Now they have made a modest comeback.
But all is not well in their environment.
Each time they return, these waters
are increasingly unfamiliar.
This area once included thousands of
manatees, reef sharks, and grouper.
Now many of them are gone.
The reef itself has declined.
Many of its jewels are missing.
In just a few years
there has been dramatic change.
One reason is a new predator,
ever more common,
that strikes from above.
Fisherman of the Caribbean
cast their nets.
Their hunt for food from waters around
the reef is more and more intense.
Their methods are increasingly
sophisticated and life is strained
from the sea.
Longlines are set for groupers
and sharks, and lures are trawled
through the waters by game fishermen.
In some places the remaining jewels
look to a future shadowed by change.
Their homes are not
what they used to be.
New reefs grow on structures that
are artificial and for the residents
are fraught with danger.
Oil rigs provide shelter on one hand,
the threat of spills and pollution
on the other.
And these new reefs may not endure
for thousands of years.
They are here today by man's whim
and could easily be gone tomorrow.
In these devastating times
a new creature has come to the reef
the sport diver.
Because of divers, sea life is
increasingly valuable alive and free.
This single shark brings millions of
tourist dollars
to the Bahamas every year.
This grouper attracts thousands
to resorts in the Cayman islands.
These dolphins play with thousands of
divers, bringing wealth
to the struggling nations
of the West Indies.
So there is a new form of symbiotic
behavior in the undersea world.
Marine creatures bring joy to
creatures of the land and we, in turn,
must provide protection against the
ravages of overfishing and pollution.
Above all, now there are
human witnesses to the damage humans
are doing here.
There is still a wealth of precious
jewels strewn about the Caribbean,
and there is still time to save them.