The Ocean’s Supermum

Documentary, Australia

ABC TV

R4

One of the good things about the DVD format is its steadily reducing cost. Documentaries don’t have to be assessed on their mass appeal. Anybody with a message to pass on or information to share can do so inexpensively, no matter how specialised the subject may be. This documentary is one such. It deals with Associate Professor Simon Goldsworthy’s attempts to find out why the Australian sea lion an endangered species, is still suffering from reduced numbers. Other similar creatures have been able to recover and increase their numbers but the sea lions are now closer to extinction than ever before. Little is known about them but the last surviving colony exists on Dangerous Reef off the coast of South Australia and it is there that Goldsworthy’s team do their work.

It’s hard to get enthusiastic about a huge mound of blubber with a set of teeth at the front, despite their endearing faces. On land they can move fast enough but “graceful” is not in their vocabulary. It is only in the water that their true abilities show up. They are nimble, fast and, yes, graceful. Goldsworthy manages to communicate his enthusiasm for these creatures in a natural, non-academic style. We look at their breeding habits (they only breed half as often as seals which may partly explain their numbers), the efforts the mother sea lion will go to to keep her pup fed, her predators (including the Great White Shark), and the problems of pollution, fishing nets and other oceanic debris. The male sealion is another problem. When fighting for a mate it may accidentally squash or injure a pup that doesn’t get out of the way fast enough.

Goldsworthy’s work is not without risk. A bite from a protective sea lion mum is no laughing matter, as we see in the documentary. The team must try to do their work on the pups while mum is at sea hunting food. The team also tries to attach radio transmitters and TV cameras to mature sea lions to investigate how deep they dive, how they hunt and what they eat. We meet a truly dedicated scientist whose job is to analyse Sea lion poo and work out their feeding habits. Some people get the good jobs.

One way to save an endangered animal is to educate people about it. Fighting ignorance with education has worked before, and they hope it will also work with the sea lions. In its own small way this DVD manages to bring this wonderful and devoted creature to the public who, ultimately, are the only ones who can save it.

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