narrator: on this episode of "earth focus"...los angeles is known for its urban sprawl and freeways rather than itsf diverse array of living species. the second-most-populated city in america islly a biodiverse hotspot--one of just a few in the entire world. within the confines of this concrete jungle, species are apting and, in some case even thriving. welcome to the los angeles urban wild.

woman: southern california is around the globepot areas which are areas of extraordinary biological diversity. man: 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 about that elevational range, elevational range county in the united states, there's a diverse suite of habitats in there, and that includes

habitat that might be righ along the busiest freeway in the country...but it also includes places where mountain lions live. i mean, it's just this place of absolutely incredible diversity ouen it comes to thinking types of habitat and types of species that are thriving here. man: hey, i thought i toldou you guys to get t of here. now, go. .come on. get out of here and her kids all going for a nice, refreshing swim all atac the exsame time.

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's all a giant matrix.st and in the rbanized parts of los angeles, you can still find literally thousands of species of plants an imals. heise: the conventiol wisdom used to be that cities are biodiversity wastelands, and we're now beginning to rethink that in two major ways. one is that actually, there's a much more so than we had originally known. thother challenge is to think about how we might make this environment that was built by us in terms of buildingsin terms of the parks that we've planted, in terms of the gardens

that some of us take care of on a daily basis. how could we make this habitat species? [coyote barks] [barks] pauly: understanding how species are adpting to urban areas is an area of research that people are really just starting to geserious about studying. things like coyotes and mountain lions and bobcats, species that we may not always think about as being city dwellers bufact, with a little bit of research, you realize are actually part of the story of a big city like los angeles.. heise: the reason that they now inhabit what weder to be our spaces is that the city has expanded out into their habitat. but coyotes are also one of those species that do make use of human settlements in often quite ingenious ways in at they obviously have learned

when to cross streets and whento noross them. it turns outcoyotes are very smart about actually observing the change of traffic lights. ma : so, this is the backside of the park here. there are almost no limits to coyotes' ability to adapt to the urban environment... because south central l.a. is prosynonymous with the most inner-city ighborhoods in the worl 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. wetlands, there's proof that coyotes use this area because 'm finding coyote scat inside tences. coyotes are species that mostno peoplelive in the l.a. area, but people think that they live in the mountas-- mountainous areas or griffith park, where there's more open space, but really don'think of them as animals abl to this type of landscape. [car alarm beeps] back to the ranger station. yeah, so, we're in griffith park, and here iser

one right here. this park is surrounded by yreeway, by urbanization, some mbarriers for wildlife. so, we just saw two, mae 3 coyotes within this picnic area. so, they know that this resource is here on a regular coyotes are doing pretty well in this urbascape thanks to their adaptability, but the mountain lions are another story. they really need solp if they're going to have a populhere for multiple generations to come.

i use camera traps, which are motion-activated cameras that have a sensor in front that's ggered by 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 pastme on the rail. yeah,.he's looking healt he's walking really well, which is great to see. griffith park, and when i say "kind of adapted," i mean that he has retained the samef behaviors rural counterparts in patagonia and in the western santa monicas. but at its core, his story is aboutis survival. and a lot people can relate to a story where it's about an individual

basically facing some very, seemingly insurmountable odds and feating them. his ability to get into this park, cross through freays that have killed multiple mountain lions before... a and live pace that is an unprecedented amount of space for a mountain lion to survive in. usually, a male mountain lion neout 200 square miles of space to itself and griffith park only oers 9 square miles. pauly: we know that the level of urbanizationre that weringing to this landscape is causing immense fragmentation. what are the pacts of freeways like the 405 and the 101 and the 5 going to do in terms of lowing these populations to continue to have uene flows so that we're not facing massive iof inbreeding?

ordeñana: i'm sure there's a lot of times where he's a lot clser than 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, going after people's chihuahuas and pet cats or kind of gotten used to outdoor lighting. hes retaining his behavior as far as eating deer, but he's somehow, and we don't know how he's doing this,d he's g 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 beenble to kind of survive

a lot of these rcumstances. one of those incidences was himc getting stuck under a house and wildlife officers shting him with beanbag rounds and tennis ball guns. he kept his cool to the point where he waited for those peop to tire themselves out before he left, and he without anybody seeing him. and tha's him being able to kind of use those natural skills of being elusive to keep his distance and stay safe. even the most adaptable specs out here, arguably the coyote or the raccoon,ave trouble in this landscape because of roads and of a lot of other urban dangers. pauly: and the reality is the decisions that we make today a 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 egree harmful to human health and well-being. but we're now also realizing that in some sense we have t overdot. ordeñana: i believe it's our responsibility to facilitate their coexistence with us. and for mounta lions and wide-ranging species that also include er, we need to allow for safe passage across these very formidable barriers that we've created. what's being proposed along the 101 freeway in agoa hills is to build a crossing, a wildle crossing. this is not a new concept. a lot of other countries have already built these wildlife crossings. what these are not just bridges, but they're bridges that are vegetated, that have nice restoration that's done leading up to these crossing points and fencing th funnel these animals. heise: the cost is comparative. so, it's $50 million that we

will invesountain lion habitat that we won't invest in something else. so, i think there needs to be democratic on making and extensive consultation about whether we want to do this and wor will raise the money this, who will pay for this. what do we owe mountain lions, what do we owe to other species of plants and animals? pa y: man-made structures act as barriers for lots of species in urban areas. but some aspects of ourre infrastrucctually allowre non-native species to thrive. the big moment for thinking about water in los angeles is 1913.

once you have permanent water on the landscape, lots ofn- tive species, if they get introduced, can now make it. isso, what's happenehat 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 o ithese species are comingn is actually via the nursery plant trade. [animals calling] things like brown anoles and green anoles and various thing called the coqui frog. "coqui, coqui, coqui," and it might do this all night long. so, if you live in a neighborho with a coqui frog, you might find it incredibly aggravating. so, the coqui frog was 1980s. once they get established in hawaii, theyom

startg into california on nursery plants. and so, now we have them establied at two nurseries here in southern california. currently have 15 people out helping us search for these coqui frogs, and that includes biologist with the california departmenof fish and wildlife as well as biologist with the natural history museum. but there's these real implications of these coqui frogs showing up and havis these impacts and it' just all because they're doing what a lot of other species are doing, which ihitchhiking a ride into the nursery plant trade. as a biologist, my interest is understanding how species are dealing with urbanization, whether those are native species that are trying settings, or whether these are non-native species that have been introduced as a result of human activity and are alsory g to find a way to make it here in the los angeles area.

we were here specifically to look for slender salamanders. give me a hand grabbing these. and we were able to find 7 slenr salamanders, and on to of that we found two other native species--a western fence lizard and a southernator lizard. you got a brahiny blind snake? no way! they're super squirmy. woman: yeah, so, we've got a brahminy blind snake here. pauly: yeah, we don't have any-- i don't have any reports of s righty blind sna around here. with those slenr salamanders, we were able to use some swabs hoto swab their skin, and swabs will then be--the dna ins thbs will be sequenced. in addition to that, we were able to take some measurements, some length asurements and some weight measurements. woman: go. yeah. .5 grams. pauly: certainly was hopeful that we would get one species today. i never imagined that we

would get 4 species. in urban places, you have thes huge matrices of private properties, just a giant jigsaw puzzle of private propty, and so, as a biologist, every 10 steps, i'm on a new piece of privaoperty. what we found is that the best way to do biodiversity research urban areas is to enlist the help of literally thousands of ople. greg and emily han and other community scientists 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 distance while scrubbing dishes and i saw this little bit of nbright blue that did ot look like anything you would see in your backyard. emily han: our claim to fame is we discovered a population of previously undiscoveresnails in los angeles. so, we immediately started looking for more snails and found a bunch of other he put a picture oe snails.th

snails on instagram, and once notification that scientists and other snail enthusiasts snail find.xcited about this woman: it looks great back here, emily. emily han: thanks. woman: and i contact gregory to say, can i come out and get it because we don't have any of those spemens in the collection. yep, that's xerotricha there. and who'is little guy? emily han: is that a cochlicella barbara? aeally teeny, tiny one? vendetti: yep, that's a juvenile. so, in february 1 of 2016, i came out here, the hans invited me, and we just did a little exploration of their backyard collected xerotricha conspurcata, so, the species we're talking about, but then also this other species called cochlicella barbara, which also is a first reco for los angeles county. and then now, almost two years later, i'm back assessing are species still here. and they are. we literally are collaborators. like, we have papers together with all of our names on it.e so, the things that-- that collaboration makes this specimen and citizescience

and standing in this backyard a really meaningful thing. e's gonna go specimens that you see behind me, and other specimens all throughout this institution. over 35 million specimens and historical collection objects. and those can basically be a time machine so that we can understand where species were found in the past. when we think about the greatest threats to biodiversity that our planet is currfacing, we think about things like climate change, and the reality is thate f the biggest threats is actually urbanization. so, we now know that as of 2009, 50% of the human population is now living in urban areas, andy, so, suddet becomes a huge imperative on people to understand hcan make urban areas more welcoming to native and desired species. and what better place to do

that than los aeles?t [bell rings] man: esperanza 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 thekyscrapers of downtown i the westlake neighborhood, downtown los angeles. woman: can you write the name and post it under the correct bird? kiuse finch, mourning dove, european starling, brewer's blackbird, red-tailed hawk, american crow.ri boy: hooded oriole, gray egret, great blue heron, and a mbird. rumble: the students love this. they love charging in here andnd really getting to know at a very deep, profound level what's showing up in our bitat.

we observe, we record, we all of these are important skills for our studens. so, at the very bottom, do you see the live spider in there? kids: yeah. rumble: i'm surrounded by deerweed, native sages encilia, but if you go back to 2014, i would have been standing on asphalt. peel back that asphalt, allow the 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 sein the garden is hummingbirds, mockingbirds, and flowers. second girl: my name is jimena lopez. we're trying to illustrate poppies and deer grass. bo a the california poppy is

flower native to california. rumble: it was a beautiful thing to have a burrowing owl be discovered ourth-grade student two winters ago. and even more incredible was that this little owl stayed think of this as a zoo without cages. i think of my students who live in those buildings right across. the stre they wake up in a concrete building. ty go down concrete stairs. there's a little patch of concrete maybe tunce a ball. they walk across a concrete sidewalk, an asphalt street, another concrete sidewalk, and thy come onto a campus which is largely asphalt. then they go home and they do it again. they need this connection to nature like every human being. now they have access to nature right here on their campus.

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 inhabit the city, but how do wee also t a habitable place for the non-human species that are alrere? pauly: there has been this geral idea out there that you want to see nature, you need go to yellowstone or yosemite, and the reality is that that's not true. and everybody should kat that's not true because they just have to start looking around a they can see the incredible diversity of species that are around them at all time you don't need to travel anywhere to see nature. you just need to start obserng.

anno possible in part by the orange county community foundationrv and the f foundation. to a new place called

commonwealth kitchen. woman: hi. i'm celeste. nice to meet you. you are cute! hi! you're cute, too. oh, thank you! they're gonna teach you how to make chutney.my marilynn: mmongue just made a party for my mouth. [laughs] celepoe: by profession, i'lice officer. so--[laughs] we better be on our best behavior, shehea. hemakes chocolate chip cookies with hot sauce. they're called sweet heat. heather: i always say i'll put anything in a cookie they're callat least once. it's li fireworks. [laughs] i'm making savory rugelach.sa marilynn:ry? s ooh... oh, that soundry-- i think it's great to, like, mash it up. i think there are heople all over this kitc that are doing just that. y i understa're throwing a party. [cheering and applause] marilynn: this is thornon-leaning tower of srugelach.