Name: Our Planet | Coastal Seas | FULL EPISODE | Netflix
Uploaded: 2021-03-15T12:02:05.000Z
Duration: 49 min 48 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

For the very first time, we looked back at our own planet.

Since then, the human population  has more than doubled.

This series will celebrate  the natural wonders that remain

Immense shoals of fish  throng our shallow seas.

Small fish, in turn, sustain bigger ones.

When hunters such as these work together,  they become extremely efficient.

The rich coastal seas  are the fishing grounds of our planet

and can provide an abundance of food  for wildlife and humanity.

The seas fringing land make up  less than a tenth of the world's oceans,

yet, astonishingly,  90 percent of all marine creatures

This superabundance  is due to the fact that the seafloor here

Everglades National Park  in southern Florida.

Fields of seagrass  carpet the shallow tropical waters.

these lush marine meadows  support a great variety of animal life.

Stingrays search for prey hiding in the seagrass.

The Everglades  are also the hunting grounds

They search for food using echolocation, a type of sonar.

have developed their own special way  of catching their prey.

They carefully herd the fish  into just the right place.

Then one dolphin stirs up a ring of mud  that encircles the shoal.

But the dolphins move on  and take another helping.

People aren't allowed to fish commercially within the national park,

Only from the air can we really appreciate the industry of these master fishermen.

The shallow seas are vitally important in the fight against climate change.

Seagrass absorb 35 times as much carbon dioxide

and that reduces the damage  caused by the recent warming of our seas.

Mangroves often border  the seagrass meadows.

These remarkable trees are the only ones that can cope

with the varying saltiness  of coastal waters.

They not only protect our coasts  from the destructive forces of hurricanes

but also, like seagrass,  capture carbon dioxide.

Their tangled roots  create safe nurseries for young fish,

which will eventually leave the mangroves

and make their homes in the tropical seas' most magical wonderlands,

These reefs cover  less than one percent of the seafloor,

yet they are home  to a quarter of all marine species.

None of these creatures would be here  were it not for the coral.

Corals create the structures  that provide food and shelter,

Every resident has a role to play in maintaining the health of the reef.

Unfortunately, few reefs  are as pristine as they once were,

one extremely important member  of the community.

Relentless overfishing has reduced  shark populations around the world

Today they only thrive  in anything like their former numbers

French Polynesia,  in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Here, at least, sharks are fully protected.

By day, gray reef sharks  hang in the current.

They let little wrasse  pick their teeth clean

when their acute senses  give them an advantage over their prey.

Time for small fish to take refuge  within the nooks and crannies of the reef,

beyond the reach of the gray reef sharks.

The sharks can detect the slightest movement.

Stay motionless  and the sharks may not detect you.

A little fish may outmaneuver  a single shark,

but with so many hunters  there is little chance of escape.

Sheltering within the coral branches is usually the safest option,

but the arrival of a second hunter  changes everything.

the whitetips can get into hiding places  other hunters can't reach.

Those that are not caught by the whitetips

are flushed out  to the waiting gray reef sharks.

With both kinds of sharks  hunting in partnership,

there is little respite,  even within the reef.

More and more sharks arrive,  attracted by the commotion.

Such numbers of sharks were once common  on reefs around the world.

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Our Planet | Coastal Seas | FULL EPISODE | Netflix

resilience

vast

thrive

barely