[ water bubbling ]
DR. LUBCHENCO: These are some of the most spectacular
tidepools in the world,
in terms of diversity of critters, the color,
the beauty...
I think it's just gorgeous.
CHILD: I thought I saw a hermit crab!
Hey, look, here's another one!
Looks like a lot of hermit crabs like this place.
[ gulls cawing ]
DR. LUBCHENCO: Tidepools are a haven of life --
it is just rich with so many
different kinds of sea creatures.
CHILD: This one should be good.
Come on, little guy.
DR. LUBCHENCO: That's a sea urchin shell.
Cool. Yep.
[ water dripping ]
DR. LUBCHENCO: Here in the Pacific Northwest
we're particularly lucky
because things are big, they're colorful --
it's just endlessly fascinating,
which is why I still like to come down
and play in tidepools.
They use the two feet to walk along, on the bottom...
My name is Jane Lubchenco,
I'm Distinguished Professor at Oregon State University.
I've been at OSU for 40 years now,
except for the four years that I spent in Washington, D.C.,
president elect Obama at the time invited me
to come be the head of NOAA --
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration --
from 2009 to 2014.
If you look right over here,
there's a mama oyster catcher and there are three babies.
Have you seen any oysters out here?
No. Out here they get mostly...
The thing that really keeps me going,
when I am doing a lot of the international work that I do
is to go to spectacular places,
like here on the Oregon coast, and get rejuvenated.
CHILD: Hey, look at all the anemones.
DR. LUBCHENCO: Yeah, look at all the anemones -- isn't that cool?
And when our grandkids are here,
it's just a whole new, wonderful opportunity
to see it through their eyes, to experience the magic,
the majesty of this incredible place.
[ waves crashing, gulls cawing ]
We're just north of Cape Perpetua
in the central part of the Oregon coast,
and every tidepool brings new discoveries.
I found another, it's right here!
All these big mussels that are sticking up
actually have a little community living on them,
and there are predators and there are prey...
Like a neighborhood?
Like a little neighborhood -- that's a great analogy!
I love it!
[ waves rolling ]
In six hours this will all be covered with water,
with the waves crashing on the shores.
[ waves crashing ]
This is a really wild environment,
and so the name of the game is find a place on a rock,
to sit, to hide out and hang on tightly.
[ water whooshing ]
Space to hang onto the rock is at a premium,
and there is intense competition.
[ waves crashing ]
I want to feed this little guy to an anemone.
DR. LUBCHENCO: One of the things that's most fun
to focus on in tidepools are the interactions --
who eats whom, and why...
CHILD: Bet he thinks it's yummy!
DR. LUBCHENCO: You see big, green anemones, for example.
When people first found anemones,
they thought they were flowers,
because they look like flowers.
They are what we call a "sit and wait" predator.
They don't go around and find food.
They actually sit and wait for the food to come to them.
Count how many arms it has.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
Why does it have six? Yeah!
It's a special kind of sea star that has six arms.
Is it a sun star?
A sun star has even more, like, 20 arms.
All kids are curious and they're full of questions.
CHILD: You probably want my finger.
Oh, he's grabbing me!
I found a mini limpet.
DR. LUBCHENCO: When they have a chance to explore,
to touch, to question, to...
find things that are unfamiliar --
some new discovery -- and that discovery element
is infectious, and everybody's, yeah, let's find this!
And, say, they found a couple of crabs.
"Let's find some more crabs!"
And all of a sudden we went on a crab hunt.
CHILD: Look!
There's, like, a purple crab, like, right in there.
You totally missed it.
DR. LUBCHENCO: Good find!
CHILD: All I know is I want to stay here forever.
[ waves crashing ]
Hey, look, the tide's coming in.
Soon the tidepools are going to overflow.
DR. LUBCHENCO: It says, "I want to go back in the water.
Please put me back in the water,"
and we always put things back where we found them,
so do you remember where you got those?
GIRL: Mm-hmm.
DR. LUBCHENCO: Ewan said at one point,
"I wanna stay here forever,"
and I thought, oh, me too.
There is so much more to discover in the ocean.
There are books there that we haven't opened yet,
and we don't know what's in them and we haven't figured out
how to read the code that's in them.
So we need to buy time so that we can make it through
some of the bottlenecks that are coming and still have a world
where my grandkids can have wonderful tidepools to explore
and a habitable planet.
GIRL: It's kind of cool something so small
can contain so many creatures,
like hermit crabs, mussels, gooseneck barnacles.
Hey, look! What, sweetheart?
What'd you find?
Seeing the kids here, today,
things are going to be in good hands with them.
That's my hope.