narrator: on this episode of "earth focus"...los angeles is known for its urban sprawl and traffic-clogged system of freeways rather than itsiv diverse array ofg species. the second-most-populated city in america is actually biodiverse hotspot--one oft jfew in the entire world. within the confines of this concrete jung, species are adapting and, in some cases, even thriving. welcome to the los angeles urban wild.

woman: southern california is one of many hotspot areas arund the globe which are areas of extraordinary biological diversity. ma : if we just think about l.a. county, you're going from sea level to 10,064 feet when you get up to mt. san antonio. when you think geabout that elevational r which is the greatest elevational range of any county in the united states, there's a diverse suite of habitats in there, and that includes

habitat that might be right along the busiest freeway in the country...but it also includes places where mountain lions live. ' i mean, it'just this place of absolutely incredible diversity when it cos to thinking about types of habitat and types of species that are thriving here. man: hey, i thought i told you guys to get out of here. now, go. come o get out of here. male reporter: we have a mom and her kids all going for a nice, refreshswim all atim the exact same t

woman: there is a hidden jungle in cities like los angeles, and a hidden savannah and hidden wetlands, and other kinds of ecosystems. pauly: there's no magic line where nature stops and city begins' it'all a giant matrix. and in the most urbanized parts of los angeles, you can still find literally thousands of species of plants and animals. heise: the conventional wisdom used to be that cities are biodiversity wastelands, and we're now begin that in two major ways. one is that actually, there's a t of biodiversity in cities, much more so than we had orinally known. the other challenge is to think about how we might make this environment that was built by us in terms of buildings, in terms of the parks that we've planted, in terms of the gardens that some of us take care of on

a dasis. how could we make this habitat re hospitable to non-human species? [coyote barks] [barks] pauly: understanding how species are adapting to urban areas is an area of research that people are really just abstarting to get serious out studying. things like coyotes and mountain lions and bobcats, species that we may not always think about as being city dwellers but, in fact, with a little bit of research, youly realize are actuart of the story of a big city like los angeles. heise: the reason that they now inhabit what we consider to beur spaces is that the ci has expanded out into their habitat. but coyotes are also one of those species that do make use of human settlements in often quitnious ways in that they obviously have learned

when to cross streets and when not to cross them. it turns out that coyotes are very smart about actually observinthe change of traffic lights. man: so, this is the backside of the park here. there are almost no limits otes' ability to adapt to the urban environment... because south central l.a. is probably syus with the most inner-city neighborhds in the world. finding coyotes here is just-- just amazing to me and exciting every time i'm able to collect some more scat.

here in south l.a. wetlands, there's proof that coyotes use this area cause i'm finding coyote scat inside these fen coyotes are species that most i people know lithe l.a. area, but people think that they live in the mountains-- mountainous areas or griffith park, where there's more open spack but really don't th them as animals able to adapt to this type of landscape. [car alarm beeps] back to the ranger station. yeah, so, we're in griffith park, and here is

one right here. this park is surrounded by freeway, by urbaniza by some major barriers for wilife. so, we just saw two, maybe 3 coyotes within this picnic area. so, they know that this resource coyotes are doing prell in this urban landscape thanks to their adaptability, but the mountailions are another story. they really need some help if they'ing to have a mepulation here for multiple generations to

i use camera traps, which are-a motiivated cameras that have a sensor in front that's triggy motion or heat that allows me to document wildlife that is using a particular area. and each photo or each image is time- and date-stamped to tell me activity levels of certain species. oh, there he is. walking right past on the same trail. yeah, he's looking healthy. he's walking really well, which is great to see. p-22 nd of adapted to griffith park, and when i say "kind of adapted," i mean that ra has retained the same behavior of his counterparts in patagonia and in the western santa monicas. but at its core, history is about survival. and a lot of people can relate to a story where it's about an individual

basically facing some very, seemingly insurmountable odds and defeating them. g his ability toet into this park, cross through freeways that have killed multiple mountain lions before... and live in a spaceis an unprecedented amount of space for a mountain lion to survive in. usually, a male mountain lion needs about 200 square miles of space to itself and griffith park only offers 9 square miles. pauly: we know that the level of urbanizationin that we are brito this landscape is causing immense fragmentation. what are the impacts of freeways like the 405 and the 101 and the 5 going to do in terms of allowing these populations to continue to have gene flows so that we're not facing massive issues of inbreeding?

ordeñana: i'm sure there's a lot of times where he's a lot closer th we think. but he's doing what pumas do best, which is avoiding people at all costs. and that's why they've been around l.a. for so long. that's why they've been able to survive in this area surrounded by people. he's not now, because he lives in griffith park,oing after people's chihuahuas and pet cats or kind of gottensed to outdoor lighting. he's retaining his behavior as far as eating deer, but he's somow, and we d''t know how he'doing this, he's finding enough prey and he's able to avoid people even though there's so much more activity in his habitat than other mountain lion habitat. p-22 has gone through a lot of misadventures. because he's a celebrity, he's been able kind of survive

a lot of these circumstances. one of those incidences was him getting stuck under a house and wildlife officers shooting h with beanbag rounds and tennis ball guns. he kept his cool to the point where he waited for those le to tire themselves out before he left, and he left without anybody seeing him. and that's im being able to kind of use those natural skills of being elusive to keep his distance and stay safe. even the most adaptable species out here, arguably the coyote or the raccoon, have trble in this landscape because of roads andf a lot of other urban dangers. nd pauly:he reality is the decisions that we make today are going to be all the difference as to whether those mountain lions are in the l.a. area 100 years from now. heise: we have been overall, over the last 150 years, been very successful at displacing especially a lot of the animals out of the city

that were to some deg harmful to human health and well-being. but we're now alo realizing that in some sense we have overdone that. ordeñana: i responsibility to facilitate their coexistence with us. and for mountain lionsnd wide-ranging species that also include deer, weeed to allow for safe passage across these very formidable barriers that we've created. what't's being proposed alon 101 freeway in agoura hills is to build a crossing a wildlife crossing. this is not a new concept. a lot of other countries have already built these fe crossings. what these are are not just bridges,th bu're bridges that are vegetated, that have nice restoration that's done leading up to these crossints and fencing that funnel these animals. he.e: the cost is comparati so, it's $50 million hat we will invest in mountain lion

habitat that we won't invest in something else. so, i think there needs to be democratic decision making and extensive consultation about whether we want to do this and who will raise the money for this, who will pay for this. what do we owe mountain lions, what do we owe to other speciesl of plants and an pauly: man-made structures act as barriers for lots of species in urban areas. but some aspects of our infrastructure actually allow non-native species to thrive. the big moment for thinking about water in los angeles

once you have permanent water on the landscape, lots of non-native ses, if they get introduced, can now make it. so, wh's happened is tha non-native species that get introduced to southern california, that are maybe from a more tropical place, now can make it here because there's much more water. and one of the ways that a lot of thesspecies are coming in is actually via the nursery plant trade. [animals calling] ndthings like brown anoles green anoles and various species of geckos and now aal thingd the coqui frog. "coqui, coqui, coqui," and it might do this all night long. so, if you live in a neighborhood with a qui frog, you might find it incredibly aggravating. so, the coqui frog was troduced to hawaii in the 1980s. once they get established in hawaii, they

start coming alifornia on nursery plants. and so, now we have them established atwo nurseries here in southern california. we currently have 15 people out helping us search for these coqui frogs, and thatw includes biologih the california department of fish and wildlife as well as biologist wihe natural history museum. but there's these real implications of these coqui frogs showing up and having thesempacts and it's just all because they're doing what a lot of other species are ing a, which is hitchh trade. as a biologist, my interest is understanding how species are dealing with urbanization, whether those area ive species that are trying to adapt to these urban settings, or whether these are non-native species tha been introduced as a result of human activity and are also trying to find a way to make it hee in the los angeles are

we were here specifically to look for slender salamanders. gi hand grabbing these. and we were able to find 7 slender salamanders, and on top of that we found two other native species--a western fence liz lizard. you got a brahminy bld snake? no way! they're super squirmy. woman: yeah, so, we've got a brahminy blind snake here. pauly: yeah, we don't ave any-- i don't have any reports of brahminy blind snakes right around here. with those slender salamanders, we were able to use some swabs to sw their skin, and those swabs will then be--the dna in those swabs will be sequenced. in addition to thatwe were le to take some measurements, some length measurements and some weight measurements. woman: go. yeah. .5 grams. pauly: i certainly was hopeful that we would get one species today. iever imagined that w

would get 4 species. in urban places, you have these huge matrices of private properties, just a giant jigsaw puzzle of private property, and so, as a biologist, every 10 steps, i'm on a new piece of private prop what we found is that the best way to do biodiversity researchn in ureas is to enlist the help of literally thousands of people. greg and emily han and other community scie that have participated in our programs are what allow us to do urban biodiversity research. greg han: i was just, i don't know, staring off in the w distanle scrubbing dishes and i saw this little bit of briokt blue that did not l like anything you would see in your backyard. emily han: our claim to fame is we discovered a population of previously undiscovered snails in los angeles. so, we immediately started looking for more snails and found a bunch of other really tiny, little snails. he put a picture of the

snails on instagram, and once he did that, we got a notification that scientists and other snail enthusiasts were very excited about this sil find. woman: it looks great back here, emily. emily han: thanks. woma and i contacted gregory to say, can i come out and get it because we don't have any of those specimens in the collection. yep, that's xerotricha there. and who's this little guy? emily han: is that aic cocla barbara? a really teeny, tiny one? vendetti: yep, that's a juvenile. ,so, in february 1 of 20 i came out here, the hans vited me, and we just did a little exploration of their backyard and collxerotricha conspurcata, so, the species we're talking about, but then also this other species called cochlicella barbara, which also is a first record for los almost two years later, i'm back assessing are those species still here. and they are. we literally are collaborators. like, we have papers together with all of our names on it. so, those are things that-- that collaborion makes this specimen and citizen science

and standing in this backyard a really meaningful thing. nna go this one's ght there. we have the specimens that you see behind me, and other specimens all throughout this institution. overllion specimens and historical collection objects. and can basically be a time machine so that we can understand where species were found in the past. wh we think about the greatest threats to biodiversity that our planet is currently faci think about things like climate change, and the reality is thatb one of tggest threats is actually urbanization. so, we now know that as of 2009, 50% of the human population is cow living in urban areas, and so, suddenly, it s a huge imperative on people to understand how we ca urban areas more welcoming tove nand desired species. and what better place to do

that than los angeles? [bell rings] man: esperza is located in one of the highest-density neighborhoods of downtown los angeles. [kids speaking indistinctly] i'm the principal of esperanza elementary school, just east of the skyscrape of downtown in the westlake neighborhood, downtown los angeles. woman: can you write the name and post it under the correct bird? kids: house finch, mourning dove, european starling, brewer's blackbird, red-tailed hawk, american crow. boy: hooded oriole, gray egret, great blue heron,. and a mockingbi rumble: the students love this. they love charging in here and really getting to know at a very deep, profound level what's showing up in our habitat.

we observe, we record, we analyze, we share. all of these are important skills for our students. so, at the very bottom, do you ersee the live spider in kids: yeah. rumble: i'm surrounded by deerweed, native sages, encilia, but you go back to 2014, i would have been standing on asphalt. peel back that asphalt, allow e dirt to be there, to plant native plants and create a living laboratory for students to really explore. girl: my name is ramona ramino. i like the garden because we come here and explore nature in the garden. what i see in thearden is hummingbirds, mockingbirds, and flowers. second girl: my name is jimena lopez. we're trying to illustrate poppies and deer grass. boy: the california poppy is a

flower native to california. rumble: it was a beautiful thing to have a burrowing owl be discovered by a fouade student two winters ago. and even more incredible was that this little owl stayed th us, and so, i sometimes think of this as a zoo whout cages. i think of my students who live in those buildings right across the street. they wake up in a concrete building. they go dn concrete stairs. there's a little patch af concrete maybe to boun ball. they walk across a concrete sidewalk, an asphalt street, another concrete sidewalk, and they come asphalt. then they go home and they do it again. they need this connection to like every human being. now they have access to nature right here on their campus.

heise: i like to call it multispecies justice, so, it's thinking about what is it right to do by people. how do we make this a more just, a more fair space for the different groups of people who bihabit the city, but how do we also make it a ble place for the non-human species that are already here? pauly: there has been this general idea out there that if yo need to go to yellowstone ors ite, and the reality is that that's not true. and evybody should know that that's not true because they just have to start looking around and they casee the incredible diversity of species that are around them at all times. you don't need to travel anywhere to see nature. you just need to start observing.

announcer: "rth focus" is made possible in part by the orange ndunty community foundation and the farvue fion.

it is estimated there will be two billion more people on the planet by mid-century. growing enough food for this booming world population without serious environmental impacts is one of the gr htest challenges to faceanity. the same way that we have been through the green revolution, with aquaculture right now we're going through the blue revolution. consumer demand for seafood is on the rise, as doctors tout its health benefits and developing nations can afford more costly sources of protein. by the year 2030, we're going to have to produce an additional 30 million metric tons of seafood to feed the human population. at the same time, wild fish stocks are either depleted, overfished, or stagnant at best.