Of penguins, families and life

Yesterday I watched a movie, rather a documentary: March of penguins. Thought overloaded with work, I decided to watch after a friends blog on the movie got me interested. One of the things that struck me was the incredible struggle that Emperor penguins undertake to raise their chicks. Travelling over 70 miles by foot they spend most of their time enduring harshest climate on earth. What explains it? Pure evolution? May be yes..but I see something more to it. Even though Iam not a biologist, I can safely say that there are two ways an organism responds to the threat for their new born. Organisms like fish, rabbits and sparrows(just an example to show the generalisation) produce a lot of off springs which have low probability of survival..either they bet on numbers. Others prefer having one or two off springs which are taken care of extremely well or they are raised in realtively inaccessible places from the predators. Examples include humans, eagles, whales, elephants and well after the movie penguins. Looking at their situation I couldnt imagine why they did not adopt the first approach, stay close to the sea and bet on numbers as many brids seem to do. Why they needed to stay hungry for over four months, trek back and forth to sea to get food while dodging sea lions and bear (seemingly) unneccesary pain. I definitely think life is more than just pure evolution and a desire to preserve genes through progeny.
One more observation was how important the roles of both male and female was in raising a offspring. I never believed men and women were equal, rather thought of them as two irreplacable parts of a circular jigsaw. Both have a role to play and that was really well highlighted to my surprise not just in humans but also in birds.
Finally after the movie a friend commented that there were many steps which the chicks had to meet death to which another friend remarked..its not different levels of death that they meet. For that just one would be sufficient. Its about different levels of life. True indeed.
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