UCCE expert featured in public TV video series

The public television affiliate in Los Angeles County, KCET, has posted a series of videos in its Departures series featuring UC Cooperative Extension natural resources advisor Sabrina Drill.

Departures is part of the KCET's Youth Voices digital literacy program, which engages high school students through workshops to become multimedia producers.

In this latest series of five videos, Drill and Camm Swift, a fishery biologist with the Natural History Museum, are filmed on the bank of the Los Angeles River chatting about the significant impact urban development, channeling, damns and introduction of non-native aquatic species has had on the ecosystem.

No native species still swim in the LA River and many riparian habitats - such as mudflats and wetlands - no longer exist.

"There's actually a big effort right now to do some large scale restoration of the LA River. The City of Los Angeles is heading that up," Drill said on the second video. "It's a long, long process, but they're in the feasibility study phase right now."

The student who produced the series, Mike Cadena, said in a commentary about the video series that joining the biologists on the riverbank was an amazing experience.

"What I was most amazed about was the river's potential for recreation. One of the biologists said that a long time ago there'd been plans to build all sorts of rec. centers and parks all along the river and this really got me thinking about what that would mean to all of Los Angeles," Cadena wrote.

KCET online series "Departures."

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