Underwater Wonders of the National Parks

When thinking of the national parks,

our minds sends us on a journey

to some of the most iconic vistas in America.

But below the surface lies an unseen world.

These are the cultural and scientific treasures

that make up the underwater wonders of the national parks.

Death Valley National Park,

vast, dry, and unforgiving.

But things aren't always as they seem.

Here, the desert has a secret.

Underwater researchers make their

way through this hostile terrain.

Where amidst the sweltering heat

and barren landscape, lies an oasis,

a break in the earth that reveals

an environment unlike any other in the world,

a pristine and isolated ecosystem known as Devils Hole.

The national park service's mission of science and

stewardship brings these divers to an unlikely spot.

In temperatures that routinely

exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit,

they prepare to do their part in studying and

protecting this hidden treasure,

which they hope will remain for generations to come.

And the last thing you'd expect at the end of

miles and miles and miles is this kind of oasis,

this hole that's literally in the middle of the desert.

It's part of a underground water system

that is very extensive.

Water will come out from rain, snow melt,

percolate through the ground, enter the aquifer,

and it takes about 10,000 years for

one molecule of water to finally reach Devils Hole.

And what's really neat,

it's considered an extreme environment.

It's 93 degrees Fahrenheit year-round,

so it's like bathwater.

Also, it's very low in oxygen, and so,

for most aquatic systems,

it would be considered very low in biodiversity,

but the Devils Hole is considered the smallest

known habitat for a vertebrate species.

That species is the Devils Hole pupfish.

The fish, roughly one inch in size,

is native to Devils Hole,

and can be found no where else on earth.

And it's relatively small population,

makes it arguably one of the rarest fish in the world.

It was one of the earliest species to be placed

in the Endangered Species Conservation Act.

The national park service has made it one of its mission

to help manage and study the Devils Hole pupfish

by performing annual population counts.

They got their name because of their behavior.

They move around like little puppies,

playing around in the water,

so they got their name as pupfish.

And you can see them on the shallow shelf of the habitat

chasing each other around, just having fun.

The shallow shelf allows for

algae to be there, and insects to grow,

so the pupfish do most of their foraging,

and most of their spawning success

occurs on the shallow shelf.

So it's a very important habitat

of this Devils Hole ecosystem.

The shallow shelf is paramount

to the survival of future generations.

With that in mind, the park service has built

a removable walkway into the cliff walls,

ensuring there is minimal impact to the

environment as the divers enter the water.

We have a group of safety divers that have been

volunteering their time here for several decades.

We have one in particular that's been counting

Devils Hole pupfish for 39 years.

I've been out here with the pupfish count since 1976.

I don't know of anyone who's been diving longer.

But getting in the water itself

is kind of a unique experience.

The water temperature is 92 degrees.

There's air in that one.

Okay, I turned both of them on.

Everybody ready for a pressure check?

Have you been checked?

You don't have to wear a wet suit.

You don't have to worry about thermal conditions,

the water is perfectly comfortable to dive in.

Are we all ready, everyone's good?

Everyone be safe.

We're a go.

Many of the researchers

have been diving the cave for years,

and they know the layout like the back of their hand.

Once you get in, it's a very unique environment

because everything is at an angle.

There's no straight down.

Everything is like, if there was just a crack,

and this crack opened up in the earth,

and it filled with water, that's the whole environment.

So you'll drop down and you'll descend

to this kind of main fissure,

and it kind of ends where there's this place,

they call Anvil Rock.

And then you kind of turn a corner, you take a hard right.

And it goes into this whole other section,

with a whole other kind of crack in the earth,

and it just keeps going.

We actually don't know how deep it is.

What we do know is that divers have been down to 436 feet.

And they had some really bright dive lights,

and they pointed downward and they couldn't see a bottom.

So the environment is tremendously

unique from a diver's perspective.

There's no vertical up and down,

and it is a true cave dive.

When we go under that cave, it's called the Flat Room.

And we do that so our bubbles move the fish around.

So when we come back up and count that level,

they're moving around more, easier to see.

There's different rooms that you can go.

There's an area they call the

Crystal Room or the Crystal Cavern,