Living Waters by FishFlix.com ~ A Schoolhouse Crew Review

Our family enjoys watching documentary-type videos about animal life. We usually stream these types of shows, but recently we were given a copy of Living Waters: Intelligent Design in the Oceans of the Earth from FishFlix.com.  Since we enjoy documentaries, I jumped at the chance for this review. This is the second time this year that we’ve reviewed a DVD from FishFlix.com. Here is my previous review for them.  Minnesota-based FishFlix.com is a company that is dedicated to providing quality Christian videos at affordable prices, and they offer free shipping on orders $35+.

Living Waters has a run time of 68 minutes, and is the third documentary in a series called The Design of Life, following Flight and Metamorphosis. As I’m sure you can guess, Living Waters is an exploration into sea life. The documentary was filmed in several locations: Bermuda, Mexico, the U.S., Canada, and Polynesia.

The documentary features 4 different animals: dolphins, sea turtles, Pacific salmon, and humpback whales. Commentary is peppered throughout from experts. Paul Nelson-Philosopher of Biology at Biola University, Captain Dave Anderson-owner of a whale watching company for numerous years, Stephen Dunbar-Associate Professor of Marine Biology at Loma Linda University, Timothy Standish-Biologist at the Geoscience Research Institute, Glenn Gately-Fishery Biologist in Port Haddock, Washington, and Richard Sternberg-Evolutionary Biologist at the Biologic Institute.

I’ll go over a little bit of what we learned (and a few things we knew already!):

The coast of California has the greatest density of dolphins per square mile of anywhere on the planet, and dolphins travel in herds of up to 10,000 in number. A dolphin’s tail generates 5 times more forward thrust than an Olympic swimmer. They use whistles and click in order to communicate with each other and to locate prey. They have an eco-sonar that transmits through their forehead.

Newly hatched sea turtles will swim up to 48 hours straight after hatching in order to survive, and they are smaller than a child’s hand. They migrate through the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, and may imprint on magnetic fields, using these to navigate back and forth to their feeding ground and the beach where they were born, and they follow the same course back to their beach that they took to get to their feeding ground.

Pacific salmon travel hundreds of miles in order to be able to lay their eggs. When laying eggs, they dig a depression in gravel and lay eggs up to 3 to 4 times at once. They also kick gravel back in order to cover the eggs just laid, and will stay near the nest. Newly hatched salmon migrate into the oceans and adapt their biology to survive in salt water. They use their sense of smell and collect information about their environment in order to migrate back to their hatching ground. They travel in a counterclockwise direction up to 18 miles per day.

Male humpback whales will sing, or hum, in sessions for several days, and their songs have between 4 and 12 themes. The songs can travel up to 1,000 miles. Adult females are up to 50 feet in length and weigh between 40-50 tons. They can live for more than 100 years, and birth calves every 2 to 3 years. They are warm-blooded and can hold their breath under water for up to 45 minutes.

The documentary was so fascinating! I enjoyed the high-quality cinematography and information very much, and my kids enjoyed it as well. It does discuss Darwinian evolution, but does not support it. Instead, it supports intentional and pre-meditated design. This DVD is great for all ages, and enjoyable enough to watch again and again. I highly recommend it!

 

Be sure to click through and read the reviews from my fellow Crew Mates. Some received different DVDs during the review period.