NARRATOR: The beaches of California are world-famous,
sun-drenched, and filled with life.
But they're also environments
on the edge,
straddling the natural world
and unnatural industry.
Just off the coast,
an impenetrable ridge of high pressure
is locking out the rain,
parching everything on land.
While below the waves,
a monstrous blob of warm water
is altering the food chain.
Mammals, and birds by the thousands,
make their homes on these shifting sands,
and adaptation might be necessary,
to keep the California dream alive,
on the Living Beach.
NARRATOR: "Go west, young man."
The state of California has long possessed
an almost mythical draw,
gathering to its golden coast
those who search for prosperity
and the promise of more.
California is the most populated state in America,
and one of the country's largest economic hubs.
Its surf and shores are legendary,
made famous in songs and movies.
But these popular beaches
are also gathering grounds
for the natural world.
Today they're weathering intense levels of change.
Environmental challenges
are driving dangerous shifts.
Offshore, water is polluted and getting warmer.
Inland, there's an unrelenting drought.
With sea animals being forced closer to the land,
and land animals being forced closer to the sea,
there's increasing stress on the inhabitants
of this living beach.
REVELL: So as you drive along the central California coast,
you're driving along one of the most beautiful
stretches of earth,
And as it naturally attracts people to recreate, to live,
everybody wants to have that ocean view,
whether they're on vacation,
or whether they want to live, and look out, or retire.
People are literally loving this coast to death.
What's at risk
is exactly what's bringing us to it:
the beaches.
NARRATOR: One hour south of San Francisco,
Pescadero State Beach
is a long piece of variable coastline,
from sands,
to craggy rocks,
and back again.
California brown pelicans
soar above the sun-dappled swells.
A shield of fibrous matter
welded deep into its breast muscles
enables the brown pelican
to keep its wings rigid and wide
for great lengths of time.
It can travel almost 100 miles in a day,
if necessary,
to reach coastal feeding grounds.
MCDONALD: The brown pelican is one of
the smaller of the pelican species,
but even though it's considered
a small pelican, its wingspan
is still close to 6 feet in width.
So they are a large bird.
NARRATOR: Today, there are at least 50-thousand
breeding pairs of brown pelicans in the state of California.
But not so long ago,
they were on the state's endangered species list.
These ones have flocked to Pescadero State Beach
for the same reason Spanish settlers did.
Pescadero is a Spanish word
meaning "a place to fish."
On outstretched wings,
the brown pelican catches thermal updrafts
to conserve its energy.
When a brown pelican flies lower on the water,
it's conserving its energy even more
by making a cushion of compressed air
between its wings and the water's surface.
This allows it to "skim" great distances
without tiring.
A flock of these birds
is called a pouch or a scoop.
This is appropriate,
because one of the pelican's defining traits
is the pouch beneath its bill,
which it uses to scoop its prey.
MCDONALD: As they dive into the water
and they open their mouth,
the large pouch on the bottom of their bill
really expands,
and it can hold a couple liters of water,
and then one of the first things they do is
they drain that pouch of the water
and then they lift up their head
and swallow the fish.
NARRATOR: When fishing,
a brown pelican dive-bombs the water,
coming in steep and fast.
The reason this doesn't injure the bird
is that it possesses a kind of built-in airbag.
Brown pelicans have air pockets in their bones,
and in the undersides of their bodies,
and these help to cushion the water's impact.
These also make the bird extremely buoyant,
its body floating high in the California surf.
Brown pelicans are strong swimmers,
moving through the water
with the same confidence they show in the air.
On land, the bird makes more loping headway,
walking on its webbed feet,
with a pronounced wobble.
This rocky colony, at the edge of the beach,
is filled with pelicans, and their cousins,
the pelagic cormorant.
With such abundance today,
it's hard to believe that brown pelicans
were once nearly eradicated,
and had to be reintroduced to this area.
MCDONALD: The brown pelican is actually
one of the best conservation stories.
They were hunted to low levels
in the late 18th century for their feathers,
and then they were affected by pesticide poisoning,
and were pretty much almost extinct in the 70s.
NARRATOR: Pesticides like DDT
threatened the future of brown pelicans.
It made their eggshells so delicate
they were crushed under the weight of the parents.
At the peak of the problem,
on one California island
out of more than 500 nests
only one successfully hatched.
Public outcry resulted in the prohibition of DDT
in California and the rest of the United States
in 1972.
MCDONALD: And then once the pesticides were banned,
and the pelicans were protected,
this bird has rebounded,
and they were delisted in 2009.
So the brown pelicans are actually doing quite well,
and we hope that they continue to do well in this area.
NARRATOR: The brown pelican is no longer endangered,
but it does retain conservation status.
Here at Pescadero State Beach
the colony is thriving.
It's breeding season.
These wing flaps can be displays of dominance,
or just to demand a little space.
This male is trying to woo a mate,
he sways and ducks his head,
bowing and turning in a gentlemanly way.
Once paired, these birds are monogamous,
but they only remain that way for a single season.
This preening behavior
is a way of waterproofing their feathers.
Brown pelicans have a preen gland
near the base of their tails.
They tilt their heads backward
to reach the secretions there,
and then apply it to their plumage.
Keeping naturally oiled
allows the bird to shed water from its feathers
and keep them in place for optimal flying.
This natural oil is a good thing.
But then there's man-made oil spills,
like the 3400 barrels of crude
that washed onto these beaches in 2015.
MCDONALD: Recently there was the oil spill
in southern California,
and I think most of the birds
that they rescued were brown pelicans.
When a bird gets covered in oil,
the problem is the waterproofing.
They make sure that their feathers
are positioned in the proper way,
so water can't get in.
Once they get oil on their feathers,
the feathers start to clump
and are no longer waterproof
and they get cold.
So oil, basically, is a death sentence
for these birds
because they can no longer stay warm.
And then when they spend time preening,
they end up ingesting the oil.
NARRATOR: After the accident of 2015,
massive cleanup efforts
managed to rescue many coastal birds,
including brown pelicans.
Pelicans have a fossil record
dating back more than 30 million years.
But the spilling of fossil fuels
is a continuing, modern challenge for this species.
And it's not the only one to suffer.
This common murre shouldn't be on the beach.
Murres spend eight or nine months in the ocean non-stop.
They're divers, plunging 100 to 200 feet deep
to hunt for fish.
This one has encountered oil somewhere,
leaving its feathers raggedy and matted.
Upon surfacing, it likely pierced through a sheet of oil.
The bird's ungainly walk doesn't reflect any injury.
It's simply less adapted for land,
with feet far back on its body,
so it hobbles along on the backs of its legs.
Among birds,
the murre has one of the highest mortality rates
due to oil spills.
This one won't last long like this.
The man-made oil destroys the natural oils
from its preening gland.
Its feather no longer waterproof.
it cannot dive, feed or stay warm.
Without help, it will likely die soon.
The cause and effect
between a man-made oil spill
and a sick bird is a direct link.
But industrialization affects
the animal kingdom in many ways,
even when the links between cause and effect
are less obvious.
Humankind contributes to global warming,
And global warming contributes
to a stubborn new weather system,
that in turn, has led to the longest,
most extreme drought in this state's history.
LOWE: California's been
suffering a drought
for at least 10 years.
And getting progressively worse.
Those conditions
may be like this for a long time.
NARRATOR: Meteorologists have nicknamed
the weather system responsible for this drought
the "Ridiculously Resilient Ridge".
REVELL: One of things that is really
causing this drought
has been this high pressure resilient ridge
that sets up offshore.
NARRATOR: Lying off the coast,
is a stationary mass of high-pressure air.
Almost 4 miles high, and 2000 miles long,
this ridge acts like a kind of great wall.
Diverting the jet stream and blocking the Pacific rain
that would otherwise reach California.
REVELL: So storms that would normally come ashore
and provide precipitation
are now deflected northward.
NARRATOR: The longer this ridge refuses to budge,
the more parched the entire state becomes.
This affects both humans and animals.
REVELL: This drought has been sustained
for a number of years,
and water supply issues are getting critical.
We're seeing terrestrial animals
that usually can find water supplies
in upper portions of the watershed
having to come much lower into the watersheds.
Species like mountain lions and bears
are starting to have more interactions with humans
in the built environment.
NARRATOR: This is also true for mule deer.
Wider foraging brings deer closer to the beach.
Here, a family of mule deer
wanders along the small gully of Pescadero Creek
that leads to the beach.
Their search for food and water
has brought them perilously close to the highway.
Forced to seek food and water
beyond their natural inland habitats,
more deer have been wandering onto roads,
and meeting untimely ends.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife
has identified the drought as a key contributing factor
in these increasing fatalities.
California mule deer are their own subspecies,
distinguished from other mule deer
by their upward forking antlers.
These three have no antlers,
because they're females.
A full grown doe will usually give birth
to two fawns in the spring.
For the first year of life,
these fawns will stay with their mother.
Now, as the fall lengthens,
these two have matured to the point
where they've lost their young spots.
Mule deer are so-named
because of their big, mule-like ears,
which can move independently of each other,
cocking and swiveling at odd-angles,
ever-on-the-alert.
But mule deer have one particularly vigilant sense.
It's estimated that they can smell
one thousand times more keenly than a human being.
It is also estimated that they can smell
a human being from half a mile away.
Sensing no imminent danger,
this trio returns to its foraging.
Turning away, their tails become more apparent.
When relaxed, the tails hang down,
showing black on top,
and hiding the white beneath.
They continue to look for small berries and flowers,
munching away in this drought-burnt scrub.
In this dry landscape,
the deer are liable to continue toward the beach,
following the fresh water
that winds beneath this bridge.
Where the freshwater creek meets the salty ocean,
the water is a brackish mix,
important for certain species,
like the steelhead trout.
But sometimes the creek is unable
to complete its journey to the sea.
Manmade changes as a result of rebuilding this bridge,
and irrigation projects
have had a negative effect on the steelhead.
REVELL: What happened, as in many
human experiments gone awry,
is that we've enabled conditions to set up
that have resulted in large fish kills,
and these have resulted in the listing of
the steelhead trout as an endangered species.
NARRATOR: Steelhead spend their early life upstream
in the freshwater at the top of the creek.
But at some instinctive point,
they swim downstream and enter the estuary.
While in the estuary's lagoon,
the steelhead adapt to saltier, brackish water.
This readies the fish for the open ocean,
but they have to wait for nature
to open the gate.
REVELL: Seasonally, this closes off.
You can see right here where
at late summer, early fall,
and the sand bar has been built up,
closing off the lagoon.
NARRATOR In spring, the lagoon rises enough
to flood over the sand bar,
providing access to the ocean.
REVELL: A steelhead, when it reaches a certain size,
and the river is reconnected to the ocean,
will go out into the ocean.
NARRATOR: After two or three years at sea,
these steelhead will return to Pescadero Creek to spawn.
But human development here
has disrupted this natural life-cycle.
REVELL: In the early 1990s,
the state of California had to replace this bridge,
and they changed the geometry of the bridge.
Many feel that it has altered the way
the mouth opens and closes.
NARRATOR: The new bridge has fewer supports in the water,
and is closer to the ocean,
which may change the flow of water
and sand beneath the surface.
Tampering with delicate habitat
sometimes creates unpredictable results,
the sandbar now floods earlier.
And sometimes humans dig channels
connecting saltwater to fresh.
REVELL: One of the things that the fishermen have done
historically on this system
as it gets close, is to try and dig it out.
They want the fish to come in and start their migration.
The challenge is when they open it too early,
the fish either aren't ready offshore,
they haven't pooled up and aren't trying to get in,
or the fish in the lagoon haven't gotten big enough
to survive the ocean voyage.
NARRATOR: Sometimes when humans try to fix a problem,
things only get worse.
REVELL: In addition, in 1994, 95,
there was a restoration effort
which was trying to
create more fresh water and salt water habitats
There was a design
that was not necessarily fully engineered.
It really relied on two tide gates
that had to be manually opened and closed.
And as things do in the marine environment,
these tide gates were never really maintained,
and decayed.
NARRATOR: These broken tide gates
resulted in too much stagnant water.
And where there's stagnant water,
"pond scum" vegetation can rapidly take hold.
This compromises the water quality for the steelhead.
REVELL: There's a lot of decay and decomposition,
and that really starves the water of oxygen.
Fish need oxygen in the water to live,
and so a lot of times the water quality
gets very poor.
And we've seen, since the combination
of the bridge replacement and the restoration,
that there's been a lot of fish kills.
What historically were steelhead runs in the tens,
to hundreds of thousands of fish,
are down to two or three a year.
NARRATOR: There are ongoing efforts
to save the steelhead trout, here at Pescadero.
After spawning upstream in 2013
many adult steelhead were trapped behind the sandbar.
Unable to escape to the ocean,
these fish were suffocating in the oxygen-poor water.
Members of the Department of Fish & Wildlife,
along with other organizations,
staged a rescue operation.
Scooping up the steelhead,
one by one, lifting them across the sandbar,
then releasing them into the greater Pacific,
like a very unconventional form of catch and release.
Human intervention is changing the beaches of California.
Officials struggle to manage interests
that are often in conflict.
About 200 miles south of Pescadero Creek,
Guadelupe-Nipomo Dunes
is a complex that includes a National Wildlife Refuge,
but the animals and scenery aren't the only attraction.
The Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes complex
encompasses 18 miles of the California coast.
Within it are beaches,
campgrounds,
wildlife zones,
and the second largest dune system in the state.
Officials here have set aside different areas
for different uses,
including off-road vehicles tearing up the dunes.
BELLMAN: As you might imagine,
this is not a usual sight to see on a beach.
In California it is the only beach
where you can drive and recreate off highway.
Managing the natural aspects of this location
along with all of that recreation,
really is a challenge.
The Dunes Complex tries to balance the demands
of a human Parks and Recreation area
with the more delicate needs of a Wildlife Refuge.
Among the many birds on this beach
are the California least tern
and the western snowy plover.
Both of these small beach waders
are listed as threatened,
and both breed among the sand dunes.
As ground nesters, their breeding grounds
are particularly vulnerable to off-road vehicles.
BELLMAN: In a year, we'll probably see about
500,000 vehicles come into Oceano Dunes area,
probably about 1.7 million actual people.
NARRATOR: But March to September are peak months
for these birds to nest here.
So, during this period of time,
visible steps are taken to separate nature
from the off-roaders
MEYST: In order to deal with
these two diametrically opposed forces,
essentially what they've done is
set up fencing to limit
the area in which the off-roaders can venture.
NARRATOR: The current routine sees the fences
dismantled every October
when the breeding season ends.
They're removed to allow beach access
to the off-road vehicles.
But environmentalists are hoping to make these fences
a permanent fixture,
because some snowy plovers
might be adapting to the off-road vehicles
in a dangerous way.
BELLMAN: The one thing that's unique
about the plovers that live here is
we feel that they really have
taken a liking to the tire tracks.
They kind of nest and roost down into the tire tracks
and can watch everything going on around them.
So when we take down those fences,
we'll continue to see plovers in the tire tracks
NARRATOR: Though they live with high traffic,
the snowy plovers are actually on the increase here.
Because of the fencing and conservation efforts,
over the last two decades,
the number of nests in these dunes
has increased by more than 1,000%.
And the dune system itself
is showing signs of improvement.
BELLMAN: And today, as it stands,
it's got about 25% more vegetation than it ever had.
NARRATOR: This complex of protected habitats
and recreational areas
includes both saltwater
and freshwater habitats in close proximity.
MEYST: That lake environment is where we see
the amount of biodiversity
start to dramatically increase.
NARRATOR: Just a few miles from the roar of the engines
in the fresh water of Oso Flaco Lake,
a California species of special concern feeds.
The American white pelican
is one of the largest birds on the continent,
with a wingspan that can stretch nine feet.
Brown pelicans dive-bomb their prey,
but American white pelicans
swim in a herding group.
They surround the fish in this lake,
steering them toward the shallows,
scooping them from the water,
and then swallowing them whole.
In a state with a population
of more than 39-million people,
all of California's wild creatures
must live in relatively close quarters
with human habitation.
Sometimes, in the shadow of big industry,
it seems impossible for wildlife to persevere.
Moss Landing State Beach.
It's not just wildlife that uses the water here.
To generate power, this plant cycles through
almost 1 billion, 200 million gallons of water
every single day,
discharging warm water into the bay
at the end of the process.
But it's in these waters
that the endangered California sea otter
not only perseveres,
but thrives.
Also known as the southern sea otter,
they were hunted almost to extinction
during the 18th and 19th centuries.
Its fur was considered so valuable
that it was known as "soft gold".
Before 20th century conservation efforts,
it's estimated that the population of sea otters
was as few as 2,000 worldwide.
Today, these numbers are rebounding,
and there are almost 3,000 sea otters
in California alone.
Moss Landing is one of the biggest concentrations
for the animals.
The sea otter is one of the smallest marine mammals,
and one of the only ones without blubber.
To compensate, its legendary fur
is the densest in the entire animal kingdom.
This allows the little otter
to cope with cold-water living.
MCDONALD: They tend to lose a lot of heat to the water.
They spend a lot of time grooming
or order to maintain their dense fur,
to help them stay warm in these conditions.
NARRATOR: Not only is their coat dense,
it's extremely buoyant.
The otters are able to groom
while floating on their backs.
They manually squeeze water from the fur,
replacing it then, with more air,
which traps between the individual hairs
making up that fur.
The otters have unusually large lungs,
which help with their carefree floating,
conserving energy as they rest on the water's surface.
Their outer hair is waterproof,
and beneath that layer of trapped air,
their underfur remains dry.
But this isn't the only way sea otters
maintain their precious body heat.
MCDONALD: They actually
have to eat a lot of food.
They eat about 25% of their body mass
in food every day.
NARRATOR: The sea otter has an incredibly high metabolism,
eating food and burning calories
at a rate to counter its heat-loss in water.
Sea otters eat mussels, clams,
snails and other invertebrates.
When otters barrel-roll,
it's believed they are spin-washing
bits of leftover food away from their coats.
As coastal animals,
they primarily stay in sight of the shoreline,
but when it comes time to rest,
they do so in communities called "rafts".
These rafts are separated by sex.
Here at Moss Landing, it's just the boys.
MCDONALD: A lot of times you see males;
they do spend a lot of their time
napping and resting and grooming in this area.
NARRATOR: Holding their front paws
in a prayer posture
is also a way of saving heat.
It's a gesture that keeps everything tucked in,
and the body's core warm.
Because sea otters are always fighting heat loss,
it's possible they're attracted to the warm water
from this man-made power plant.
Studies using tagged otters are ongoing,
in order to gauge whether this might be the case.
But what's certain for now
is that these sea otters
consider Moss Landing home.
NARRATOR: Offshore, the Resilient Ridge,
that mass of high-pressure air,
has been making its home for years now.
In addition to causing the drought,
the ridge has also created secondary challenges,
beneath the waves of the Pacific.
Meteorologists call this offshoot problem
the Warm Water Blob.
The Blob, which is basically an ocean feature
of the high-pressure ridge,
is a massive, entrenched pool
of hotter-than-normal water.
In the summer of 2014,
that Blob was 1000 miles long,
1000 miles wide, and 300 feet deep.
LOWE: The Blob,
this area of warm water
that stations itself
in the Pacific northwest
and extends all the way
down along the coast,
is something that hasn't been seen before
in recorded history. All of this is new.
NARRATOR: The blob has raised
California water temperatures
by a startling 5 degrees Fahrenheit.
LOWE: With the blob
it actually causes warmer, calmer conditions.
There's less wind because there are less storms,
because the high-pressure ridge keeps things out.
NARRATOR: Normally, wind-churn mixes cold water from the depths
with warm surface water
like stirring cream into coffee.
This process results in an upwelling
of nutrients from the deep.
But in the absence of wind at the surface,
the nutrients remain trapped in deep water.
This affects both the abundance and quality
of food available at the surface.
Tiny, plentiful creatures at the core of the food-web,
like plankton, react badly to hotter water
and can turn toxic.
The scarcity of the food causes large animals,
like whales, to go closer inshore to feed,
increasing their risk of stranding on the beach.
And the toxicity of the food
can bloom outward,
affecting the entire ecosystem.
MEYST: And fish, they'll start to concentrate that toxin,
and the toxin will actually
move its way
through the food web,
and become concentrated
at higher levels.
We have animals that are being affected by this toxin.
We have a lot of seals that have been
washing up on the beach,
or confused seals that come onto the beach,
and don't exactly know what's going on.
So yeah, that blob out there
is really devastating.
NARRATOR: Though the Pacific harbor seal's
diet and health are directly threatened
by the warm water blob,
it's still plentiful in California,
with population numbers higher than 30,000.
They are true seals,
meaning that unlike sea lions,
they have no external ear flaps,
and out of water they lack the ability
to walk on their flippers
so they flop along on their bellies.
The harbor seal gets its name
because it doesn't like to travel far from shore.
When this coastal animal comes to land after foraging,
it's called "hauling out".
Pacific harbor seals have spotted coats,
in a range of colors, from light to dark.
They can grow up to six feet long
and weigh up to 300 pounds.
Like the sea otter,
a foraging harbor seal will usually "go it alone",
but when resting will tend to congregate in a group.
Unlike the sea otter,
the harbor seal is thick with blubber beneath its fur,
which helps to keep it warm.
They fish in shallow coastal waters,
hunting for anchovies, herring, codfish and more.
It's not just seals coming to Pescadero
and other California beaches looking for lunch.
For one predator it's the seals
that are on the menu.
REVELL: There are often times where I'm out surfing
in a place like Pescadero
that I know that I'm being watched
by some big creature underneath me,
and sometimes you just have to listen to that,
and get out of the water.
NARRATOR: The great white shark.
Every summer, more and more juvenile white sharks
are appearing in California.
LOWE: Literally, just along the beaches,
just outside the wave break.
And surfers will see 'em out there,
pilots will see 'em out there,
people will see 'em off our ocean piers.
And of course it freaks the surfers out.
What?! There's white sharks along our beaches?!
That's not a good thing.
NARRATOR: The warm water blob
is among potential contributing factors
for these increases,
as is the Resilient Ridge
and other warming patterns.
LOWE: Now the interesting thing we found
the last two winters,
we didn't have winter in southern California,
our water temperatures never got that cold.
Interestingly enough,
all the sharks that we tagged
never migrated south to Baja, they stayed.
A population that would normally be migratory
wasn't migratory.
NARRATOR: It's unusual to see
great whites so close to shore,
but it's happening more often.
Sharks are frequent predators of the harbor seals,
they could be following the seals in
as they pursue fish.
LOWE: We see big adult white sharks
along coastal beaches
because they're stalking seals and sea lions
that are hauling out in those places.
It is not uncommon to see
sharks, seals and surfers at the same beach.
Understanding the relationship
between how we all interact
is kind of something that's evolving.
NARRATOR: In California,
the number of people going into the water,
and the number of white sharks
in that very same water,
are both rising.
But what's not increasing,
in proportion to those two numbers,
is shark-to-human attacks.
LOWE: Some people are bitten, but not eaten.
What that tells me, we're not on sharks' menus.
So, even as populations grow,
sharks really aren't interested in biting people.
NARRATOR: More people are heading further offshore,
every year, sports like surfing and kite-surfing
are increasing in their popularity.
So, when humans choose to live beyond
the living beach in this way,
it does mean co-existing with other species.
LOWE: It's getting people to get past the fear,
and getting them to accept the fact
that when they go in the ocean,
it's a wild place.
You risk your life every time you go there,
but the more you know, the safer you can be.
We have to learn to share the waves with the sharks.
NARRATOR: Learning to share the ocean and the land
is key to California's survival
and the ecology of the entire planet.
LOWE: In my opinion, life on the living beach
has been thrown out of balance
for almost 200 years.
There is no doubt that people have had
direct and significant
impacts on animals that live on both sides
of living beaches.
NARRATOR: Though people often view themselves
as separate somehow,
we are an integral part of nature.
And we have the unique ability
to fix what we affect.
LOWE: We as Californians, and as Americans,
passed legislation
to improve the quality of the health
of things that we put in the ocean.
We reduced pollution going into the ocean,
we've reduced overfishing
Because we saw the importance of these things
and the impacts they were having on the ocean.
So I think we've actually done a good job
at bringing some things back.
NARRATOR: It's through human conservation
that endangered species have been brought back
from the edge here.
The California sea otter,
the California brown pelican.
REVELL: There's a lot of things
that are wrong with the ecosystem here
on the central coast of California,
but there's a lot of positive signs, too.
NARRATOR: Despite the challenges
conservationists face on California's beaches,
there are finally signs that things are improving.
The Warm Water Blob
and the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge
appear to be breaking down at last.
These warm abnormalities that persisted for decades
have recently encountered a more powerful force.
which may bring an end to the drought.
LOWE: An El Nino is basically a weather pattern
where the central Pacific
warms up right along the equator.
And as it continues to warm,
it drives warm water further north,
backwards along the west coast
of the United States.
Now that this strong El Niño's here,
we're expecting a lot of rain.
NARRATOR: If given a reprieve from tough conditions,
California can begin to renew itself.
The state will have an opportunity now,
to lead by example,
redoubling its efforts
to save the creatures and habitats
of the Living Beach.
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