No discussion of the future of the Los Angeles River is ever complete without picturesque renderings of the river resplendent in greenery. Chances are, there will probably be a few birds flying overhead thrown in for optimal ooh factor. But despite the idyllic vision presented by these renderings, it is one that is incomplete.
As it is now, the Los Angeles River is mostly encased in concrete. It's a waterway that is more a built, engineered object than it is an uncharted refuge for the wild. Though it is concrete, however, it doesn't cease to be a home for some of the city's passing residents.
Migratory shorebirds find great feeding opportunities in the wide concrete bottom river channel south of downtown Los Angeles, especially in Long Beach, explained Kimball Garrett, Ornithology Collections Manager at the Natural History Museum (NHM).
Locations such as these are becoming even more crucial, as environments that can support these shorebirds are dwindling. A 2006 report by Daniel Cooper of Cooper Ecological Monitoring notes that there are only a handful of its much-reduced wetlands, split largely between the Oxnard Plain of coastal Ventura County (including Mugu Lagoon) to the north and the coastal marshes of Orange County to the south, are appropriate for shorebirds.
--
--
Everyone is drawn to the natural beauty of the soft-bottomed Elysian Valley area of the Los Angeles River, but it isn't the only stretch of river that supports life. In the last few miles of the river from Willow Street in Long Beach to the 105 freeway in the city of Paramount, where two historical wetlands used to be, there is a wide concrete channel that may seem negligible to commuters zooming past in their automobiles. But migratory shorebirds find this stretch of river indispensable.
According to Cooper's findings, as many as 15,000 shorebirds could be found in this makeshift wetland, including at least 22 different species.
There's just the right amount of water that washes around at the bottom of that channel that create mudflats, which is where they forage for food, explained Garrett. The very shallow water (less than 10 centimeters deep) host a layer of algae, which attracts flies; their eggs and larvae in turn entice shorebirds.
If that part of the river were to carry too much water, shorebirds can't see below the water's surface, can't access their food, can't even stand on the river bottom. If we recycled all our treated water [an efficient goal when it comes to water conservation] then that area would completely dry up, the shorebirds just wouldn't be able to feed there, said Garrett. By accident, we've created the perfect habitat there. People don't think about that because they think that this part of the river is ugly and concrete, but it's a critically important habitat for these shorebirds.
Before the river was encased in concrete, there were natural estuaries, mudflats and marshes created by the river's meandering course. We don't have that anymore, said Garrett. But the humans have incidentally managed to provide a viable, though not the most ideal, alternative.
Animals, as they instinctively do, adapt to it. Garrett notes that river infrastructure meant for city living also does double duty. Cliff swallows and barn swallows nest under many of the bridges that traverse the river. The same goes for red-tailed hawks and power poles.
Decades after the river's confinement, the city is at the cusp of changing its river once again. It has been working towards regaining some of the ecologic functions it had lost when engineers wrapped the waterway in concrete.
As the city makes its decisions about the river's future, it is called upon to be sensitive to all life that has managed to grow around it, despite its not-so-green surroundings. How can Los Angeles respect what is already in the river today while moving toward a greener future for the river?
For good or ill, the concrete on the Los Angeles River has become a fixture on Los Angeles life, as has the urban environment that has grown up around it. The city could no more tear it out than it could tear out the freeways and train tracks that crisscross its banks.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
No discussion of the future of the Los Angeles River is ever complete without picturesque renderings of the river resplendent in greenery. Chances are, there will probably be a few birds flying overhead thrown in for optimal ooh factor. But despite the idyllic vision presented by these renderings, it is one that is incomplete.
