- Coming up on "This American Land"... - It's like we're making nature's friendship bracelet.

- These vertical oyster gardens are the best friends this marine habitat could ask for.

And they're filtering millions of gallons of water every day.

[birds squawking] - That is magnificent.

I never get tired of this.

- Bird watchers are delighted, and birds are heaping five star reviews on this winter resting spot.

- They're flying several thousand miles twice a year, so it's quite a monumental migration.

- And a different kind of flight on the farm.

Drones plant cover crops with seeds and speed.

Meet some of the heroes of our landscapes, waters, and wildlife starting now.

[dynamic music] ♪ ♪ - Welcome to "This American Land."

I'm your host, Ed Arnett.

And we've got a great lineup of stories on America's landscapes, waters, and wildlife, and the people who are passionate about conserving them.

A trifecta of changing climate, overharvesting, and habitat loss has triggered a collapse of wild oyster populations along the Gulf Coast of Florida.

Brad Hicks shows us how communities in the Tampa Bay area are using some unlikely tools to bring back oysters.

- If you follow Damon Moore on any given morning-- - We are in the Manatee River.

- You might wonder what he's up to.

- Heading downstream, where this river opens up.

- Unloading totes from a trailer, dragging them to the middle of the Manatee.

- First thing was just cinderblocks.

- And then the really peculiar part.

- I love that sound.

That's music to my ears right there.

- If it seems like this could be some sort of crime scene, in a way, it almost is.

And Damon Moore is the detective trying to solve it.

- This recording.

[jazzy music] Okay, we're going to be talking about oysters today.

Who's ready?

- From her "Naturally Florida" podcast studio north of Tampa, Lara Milligan is making sure people know what happened.

- So we wanted to do this episode because not only worldwide, but right here in Tampa Bay, we've seen an 85% decline in oyster populations, which is huge.

- The collapse of oysters on Florida's Gulf Coast started more than a century ago, a perfect storm of human impacts.

- Long degradation of habitat loss.

Many of the roads here were built out of shell.

Water quality declines, hydrological changes in our estuaries, and overfishing have all contributed to the decline of oysters.

- It matters because oysters are more than just shellfish.

They are the ecosystem engineers of estuaries and the ocean.

Rick Radigan with Tampa Bay Watch is trying to bring the oysters back.

- Oysters are one of those organisms that I think people look past.

One, because they don't know what they're looking at.

They do blend in.

They do-- people call them rocks.

They're like, oh, I thought that was a rock.

- They can seem like a rock because unlike other shellfish which move around, oysters lock themselves to a hard surface, usually other oysters, and never move again.

The reefs they create become crucial habitat for small fish and crustaceans that form the foundation of the food chain.

But unlike other marine habitats, coral reefs, seagrasses, and mangroves, for example, oysters are the only one that are also a human food source.

And that can add to the cascade of decline.

- As you take those reproductive adults out for whatever reason, not only are you taking the organism that reproduces, but you're taking the home for any future oysters as well.

- The impact of that is evident in the water.

Oysters are uber filter feeders, powerhouses of pollution cleanup.

A single oyster can filter nearly 50 gallons of water a day.

- Oysters.

[laughter] - So Tampa Bay Watch is trying low-cost ways to rebuild the reefs.

These shell-filled mesh bags are one method.

- So this is really a way to put oyster substrate back into the bay.

So baby oysters are just swimming around in the bay, looking for a hard substrate to attach to.

- But the bags are falling out of favor.

- This is a plastic-based material.

And there is a large movement in the environmental community, clearly, to move away from plastic materials, especially microplastics in the ocean.

- Another approach are these concrete orbs, but they're heavy, can sink into silty bottoms, and are really hard to remove if they end up not working.

- Do the oyster dance.

[laughter] - Which is why Reagan Fennessy is so excited about vertical oyster gardens.

- It is definitely the easiest garden you'll ever plant, yes.

- The process is pretty simple-- drill a hole and string the shells together.

- It's like we're making nature's friendship bracelet.

- They're called vogs for short.

- The homeowner will come and pick them up and take them back to their dock.

And the great thing about vogs, why I love them so much, is because you really see the progress pretty soon.

[bright music] - Within months, young oysters glom onto the vogs and grow.

♪ ♪ - So right now, I have 10.

- Glen Richard got on board.

- Probably weighs about 100 pounds right now.

- And strung them from his dock in St.

Petersburg.

- I'm into fishing.

And you just know that fish like habitat.

And they like oysters.

And also, I want clean water.

- We have recycled a little over 52,000 pounds of shells.

- The shells come from local restaurants.

- It's our responsibility to recycle every single one of those shells.

And if you want to talk about sustainability, I mean, this is kind of where we start, right?

- These vog volunteers are creating them at a community event because they know the benefits, even though many of them don't have a dock themselves.

- Oyster chains--or I don't even know what they're called.

Necklaces?

- We are building oyster homes because all of them broke.

- And because vogs don't touch the bottom, they don't require a permit.

So anyone with a dock can do a little citizen science.

- They can measure the oyster gardens and count the live oysters.

And then they record that data and give it to us.

And we use it in our monitoring system.

- But even with widespread adoption, it's one dock at a time.

To ramp up oyster recruitment on a large scale, it's time to see what Damon Moore has in those totes.

[exciting music] ♪ ♪ They're called oyster rag pots, simple things, really, just a rag, some cement, a metal stick, and a small square of wood.

- Poke it.

- Right in the center.

- You got it.

- There we go.

- Pull your rag up onto the post.

- There we go.

- Flip it over.

- Drape it over the thing.

- Get it even, yeah.

- These volunteers have it down.

- It takes about 24 to 48 hours to dry before we can box it up and put it in the trailer.

- As simple as they seem, getting to this point was a journey.

He started in his driveway, trying dozens of prototypes.

All options were on the table.

He field tested them, figured out what worked, and came up with something brilliant in its simplicity, cost, and scalability, all important points given the size of his plan.

- Our final target is 132 acres total of oyster reef.

And that sounds huge.

And there's a basis behind that number.

In 1888, the first time the Manatee River was dredged for navigation purposes, there was a survey done that showed 132 acres of reef existing in the Manatee River.

The river with that amount of oysters hasn't existed for over 100 years.

That's enough oyster to filter the full volume of this entire river in less than two days.

- In 1 foot increments, he and his small team stab them into the silt with that satisfying sound.

[sand crunches] They're a foot apart, so as the oysters congregate, the rag pots will coalesce into a self-sustaining reef.

Here's eight weeks in the water.

- Have like, all these little creatures that live in here.

- And here is 18 months.

- 30 pounds?

Yeah.

- The value of this is a lot of vertical surface area.

So any kind of sedimentation cannot stick to these sides, which keeps that open for oyster recruitment.

So having it be a rag, it gives all these undulations on the inside, on the outside.

And we needed them to be fairly lightweight because we can't have these things sinking into the bottom.

♪ ♪ - The rag pots are such a game changer, scientists at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island invited him to demonstrate how they could help in New England.

- Get on the line of the ones we've got going there.

And then shake it around a little bit, find a seam between the rocks.

- Rhode Island doesn't have the high density of baby oysters in the bay like Florida, so they're honing in on using the rag pots in the lab as a starter home.

- We think it would be best to try to set larvae on the rag pots in a hatchery setting where it's more controlled and give them a head start before being placed out in the bay.

- Back on the Manatee River, they have more than an acre under their belt.

Damon Moore is just getting started righting the wrong that happened here.

- We don't intend to stop.

We're going to keep scaling this up.

We're going to keep solving problems and keep sharing our ways of doing this, so other people can do it too.

♪ ♪ - When it comes to a comfortable home, it's all about location.

That's why thousands of Arctic birds choose to stop in Eastern North Carolina every winter at a five star roosting and resting ground.

Our story is from Michelle Lotker of Sci NC and PBS North Carolina.

[birds cawing] - Holy cow.

Look at the snow geese landing back there, - I know, look at this.

A swarm of them.

- Can you see that?

- It's just-- - Those are all snow geese landing there.

That is magnificent.

I never get tired of this.

[laughs] - There are tens of thousands of snow geese and tundra swans gathered in this field in an incredible display of waterfowl.

- Whenever I say waterfowl, it's hard to convey the actual spectacle of seeing tens of thousands of birds in a single area.

It's truly an incredible spectacle.

And we're really fortunate to have large numbers of tundra swans in this area.

- Tundra swans and snow geese are the stars of the show in the winter months on the coast of North Carolina at the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.

- We are the premier wintering grounds for tundra swans.

We winter approximately 70,000 to 90,000 tundra swans.

The eastern population of tundra swans is just around 100 to 110.

So we're wintering close to 80% of the entire Eastern population in North America in Eastern North Carolina.

Snow geese, we winter 100,000 plus in Eastern North Carolina.

- Snow geese numbers would range anywhere between 20,000 to-- I think one year, I counted like 120,000 snow geese.

- Why are all these birds here?

The wildlife refuge provides prime winter habitat.

These birds overwinter in refuges up and down the coast, but the Pungo Unit of Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge is one of the best places to spot them.

The Pungo Unit was established in 1963 and is part of the now 112,000 acre wildlife refuge that protects the unique Pocosin wetlands in this area.

- The Pungo Unit is named after Pungo Lake, which is this lake behind us.

It is a natural blackwater lake.

And it's an important roosting and resting ground for migratory waterfowl, which was what led to the refuge's initial establishment.

- As we were talking, thousands of snow geese took flight.

- Oh, yeah, there's the cloud.

Oh, that's incredible.

- The area around Pungo Lake includes wetlands and agricultural fields that provide habitat and food for migratory waterfowl to get through the winter and prepare for their migration back north.

- We have about 1,200 acres of cooperative farm fields.

And we have agreements with local farmers to farm it.

- In exchange for being able to farm on the land, they leave a portion of their crop as rent for wildlife food.

They leave corn standing.

And that provides a really high calorie, energy dense food source for these waterfowl and other wildlife that benefits as well.

- Waterfowl impoundments on the refuge are managed to hold fresh water, supporting wetland ecosystems and all of their flora and fauna.

- Those native plants provide essential minerals and nutrients that you won't find in just a corn diet and winter wheat diet.

- It's about providing habitat at the right times, the right condition, and providing the highest quality habitat that we can in the landscape.

One huge factor that the refuge can provide that other lands are not likely to provide is the sanctuary, sanctuaries, where these birds can rest and maintain their body condition because they're preparing, as they overwinter, they're going to have to begin their migration in the spring.

And that's going to take energy.

- These birds aren't in North Carolina year round.

They fly south via a route called the Atlantic flyway each winter.

- In North America, in the 1950s, they identified four major flyways.

We're in the Atlantic flyway, the easternmost flyway.

The swans that we're seeing behind us have come from the high Arctic, reaching from Eastern Canada all the way to the North Slope of Alaska.

- And these birds spend a big percentage of their year migrating back and forth.

- They're flying several thousand miles, likely over 3,000 miles, probably closer to 5,000 miles.

And they're doing that twice a year.

So it's quite a monumental migration.

And what's unique about tundra swans and high Arctic nesting waterfowl is that they're migrating six months out of the year.

It requires a tremendous amount of energy.

- This migratory pathway has been in place for generations.

Parents teach their offspring the route.

- The young birds are kind of grayish.

And so there's a young bird kind of in the middle of this close flock here.

If you scan, you'll see that it's-- all kind of a dusty color.

- To track how populations are doing, people survey them by air and by land.

John Hammond is one of those people.

♪ ♪ - I am currently working as a volunteer for the wildlife resources system here, particularly the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.

My wife comes out.

And she's a great birder, too, and a great spotter.

And she's helping me count.

[chuckles] Because once you get above 2,000 or 3,000 individuals, it gets really hard to track.

- John gave me a quick crash course in bird surveying.

- How do you look at a field of thousands of birds and try to count how many of them there are?

- Well, on this field, there are huge numbers of tundra swans milling about.

And it is daunting to try to figure out how many there are.

But one technique we use is to identify a few degrees worth of sight and count the number of birds in that field of view.

One, two, three, four.

- Six, seven, eight.

- My first field this time, I've got about 80.

- I think that's about where I was headed too.

You're much better at this than I am.

When you've counted how many birds are in one field, keep track of a landmark and pivot your binoculars to start a new field where the first one ended.

And once you know how many fields there are-- - Then you can multiply it by the number of individuals within that first unit.

- It's also quite convenient that they're on the ground, standing relatively still, as opposed to flying through the air.

- It is much easier that way.

- Yes, I can imagine.

Well, it's such important information to have, right, to know that the populations are doing well, the way the refuge is being managed is working.

That's why we count them, right?

- That's right, yeah.

[birds squawking] - This spectacle draws tourists from all over the world.

You don't have to be a bird nerd to be in awe of the sight and sound of this unique North Carolina experience.

How cool.

And it doesn't get old, even for people who have been working with these birds for decades.

- Oh, look at these.

Look at the swans coming in.

- I mean, this is just unbelievable.

♪ ♪ I mean, it's just a marvel of nature.

It's almost like we can touch them.

I mean, we're so close.

- Wow.

- 35.

- Maybe 35.

We might have as many as 40,000 here.

I think, what's the most you ever counted?

- Most I ever counted was, like, 110,000, 120,000.

And that was a conservative count.

- I mean, I just wish everybody could experience this.

I mean, what an appreciation for nature.

I mean, right here for the American public.

♪ ♪ - Now, to a much quieter interaction with the great outdoors.

Our show has always helped connect people with nature.

And that's what Colin Hare does with the artists he meets in Inspiration Point.

Today, we'll meet a musician in Seattle who's found a beautiful place to reset his energy.

[upbeat music] ♪ ♪ - I'm hitting the road today to the Pacific Coast of Washington, one of my favorite places in the world, to meet Tomo Nakayama, recording artist.

Tomo is based in Seattle, but when he needs that spark of inspiration, he comes down to Seaview, Washington, unplugs, and writes.

So today, I'm headed down to see what it is about this place that is so inspiring for Tomo.

[pensive piano music] ♪ ♪ - I just released a new solo album.

It's my fourth solo album.

It's called "Ocean."

And a lot of it was written here.

[knock on door] - Hey.

- Hey.

There he is.

- Good to see you.

- Good to see you.

- We made it out here.

It's like the perfect Pacific Northwest kind of gray day.

I love it.

- A bit of rain.

- I love it.

- Yeah.

- So the trail's right through these woods?

- Yeah, it goes all the way out to the water.

- The water, huh?

- I like coming out here first thing in the morning, you know, and just walking in silence.

- Oh, and that hits.

- How often do we get to do that, you know?

We're kind of at the edge of the world.

And then there's this really beautiful trail that goes through the woods.

You're surrounded by green moss and grass, tall grass.

And then all of a sudden, it opens up.

And you're out into this vast expanse of ocean and sand.

Yeah, it's a really awe-inspiring place.

- Hey, buddy.

- Look at that.

There's a deer right there.

It's like a magical forest.

- [laughs] - There it comes.

There.

Hi, Bud.

When you do this walk, what are you looking for?

Is there anything you're looking for?

- It's kind of the opposite, really.

I can never seem to write when I'm like, setting out to write, you know what I mean?

Like, if there's an end goal in mind, it doesn't work.

- It's a pretty excellent place to do it, I'd say, here in the-- in this little forest.

- You know, this place is a quiet space where I can be alone with my thoughts.

And it's a change in perspective.

I think that's where a lot of my songs start.

[soft upbeat music] - Why do you think the quiet impacts the creativity?

- I think I spend so much time just like, taking in information constantly in my daily life.

- Sure.

- That it takes a while to reverse that flow from taking in to outputting.

- Right.

- You kind of have to be in a quiet place like this to, like, reset.

- Just the waves crashing and the wind.

[waves whooshing] It's so amazing, like, coming out of the forest, right, and then-- - It's a totally different world.

- Like a different planet.

Yeah, it's like a different planet here, you know?

It's pretty amazing.

Wow.

What is that out there?

Is that a seal?

- Might be.

- It's a little seal in the waves out there, yeah.

Oh, yeah, there's two of them right there.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- It looks like little bald old men.

If I'm remembering correctly, your album cover is like you in the waves right here, right?

- It was summertime, though, so it was a little warmer, yeah.

People say that my music sounds like the Pacific Northwest.

And I can't really put a finger on exactly what it is, but I think there is something where you hear a band from Seattle and you can kind of tell, you know?

[laughs] - I mean, I feel like I can hear the drips of water coming off your glasses right now.

- That's what it is.

Yeah, just constantly wet.

- The soundtrack to being wet.

- [laughs] [soft acoustic music] ♪ ♪ ♪ One, two, three, one, two ♪ Songwriting is just reacting to the time and place you're in, a literal kind of travelogue of where you are in life.

♪ Raindrops, rhythm of water ♪ - Now that the album's been released, what does it feel like to be back here?

I mean, it's kind of a chapter in your life.

- So much work and time went into making the record.

And I feel like a totally different person from where I was the last time I was here.

But I just feel very grateful for the journey, you know?

And getting ready to write more, I guess, yeah.

- Feeling the inspiration again here?

- Yeah.

[laughter] ♪ Ooh ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Focus your iris over the sea ♪ ♪ We are here but for a little while ♪ - I can see why it's inspiring.

[soft music] - What fertilizes a Midwest cornfield can impact the success of fishing fleets 1,000 miles away.

Farmers have long known the benefits of cover crops.

But a new method of distributing the seeds for those crops can pay off big.

Brad Hicks takes you to Eastern Iowa where these crops are sown by drone.

- Under the canopy of this Iowa cornfield, you can see Dan Staner's success story.

- All these long-stemmed plants right here are oats.

- They may not seem like much, but these sprouts could help fishermen 1,000 miles away.

- If the corn didn't use all of the fertilizer, the nitrogen is going down the Mississippi basin into the Gulf of Mexico and ruining those fisheries.

- The oats will scavenge that leftover nitrogen from the soil and store it for next season's corn.

The oats are a cover crop, planted for their ecological instead of economic benefit.

- It means we're not leaving soil bare at any point during the year.

- Which also helps control weeds and erosion.

But there's a problem.

In the Midwest, by the time corn and soybeans are harvested in October, it's often too late to plant a cover crop.

So how did Dan Staner get those oats seeds growing so early?

He flew them in on a giant drone.

[rock music] - Preparing for takeoff.

- It's called interseeding.

- Interseeding is a great way to get cover crops on the ground before the corn is harvested or the soybeans are harvested.

- Usually, it's done this way-- not so good for the soil.

And it costs the farmer a lot of time and fuel.

[machine whirring] The drones can carry 150 pounds of seed.

The fields are mapped out in advance so they don't miss an inch.

- That's for the whole field?

- Yeah.

- Sand County Foundation is covering the cost in Dubuque County so farmers can try it.

On this day, they're doing Jeff Pape's 150 acres of soybeans.

- The main thing for me is water quality.

That's a big issue for me and always has been.

- And with drone technology evolving, the sky's the limit.

- They're getting bigger, faster, carry more payloads, cover more acres.

And I feel like that's just going to keep evolving.

[soft music] - Now here's a look at some stories coming up in our next show.

- When we look at the coral reef, it is not just a marine resource.

It is our relative.

- What's killing the coral in Hawaii?

Science and culture come together to find answers fast.

- We owe these men a lot.

- And we reveal some hidden history from the Great Depression-- the proud legacy of Black conservation workers in the Okefenokee Swamp.

- That's our show, and thanks for watching.

Be sure to check out our website at EnvironmentNewsTrust.com And you can always watch us on PBS Passport.

We'll see you next time.

[dynamic music] ♪ ♪