0:00:02.000,0:00:07.000
(Nature sounds)

0:00:07.000,0:00:10.000
When I first began recording wild soundscapes

0:00:10.000,0:00:12.000
45 years ago,

0:00:12.000,0:00:14.000
I had no idea that ants,

0:00:14.000,0:00:18.000
insect larvae, sea anemones and viruses

0:00:18.000,0:00:20.000
created a sound signature.

0:00:20.000,0:00:21.000
But they do.

0:00:21.000,0:00:25.000
And so does every wild habitat on the planet,

0:00:25.000,0:00:28.000
like the Amazon rainforest you're hearing behind me.

0:00:28.000,0:00:32.000
In fact, temperate and tropical rain forests

0:00:32.000,0:00:35.000
each produce a vibrant animal orchestra,

0:00:35.000,0:00:38.000
that instantaneous and organized expression

0:00:38.000,0:00:43.000
of insects, reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals.

0:00:43.000,0:00:46.000
And every soundscape that springs from a wild habitat

0:00:46.000,0:00:49.000
generates its own unique signature,

0:00:49.000,0:00:52.000
one that contains incredible amounts of information,

0:00:52.000,0:00:57.000
and it's some of that information I want to share with you today.

0:00:57.000,0:01:00.000
The soundscape is made up of three basic sources.

0:01:00.000,0:01:02.000
The first is the geophony,

0:01:02.000,0:01:05.000
or the nonbiological sounds that occur

0:01:05.000,0:01:07.000
in any given habitat,

0:01:07.000,0:01:09.000
like wind in the trees, water in a stream,

0:01:09.000,0:01:13.000
waves at the ocean shore, movement of the Earth.

0:01:13.000,0:01:16.000
The second of these is the biophony.

0:01:16.000,0:01:19.000
The biophony is all of the sound

0:01:19.000,0:01:22.000
that's generated by organisms in a given habitat

0:01:22.000,0:01:26.000
at one time and in one place.

0:01:26.000,0:01:31.000
And the third is all of the sound that we humans generate

0:01:31.000,0:01:32.000
that's called anthrophony.

0:01:32.000,0:01:36.000
Some of it is controlled, like music or theater,

0:01:36.000,0:01:40.000
but most of it is chaotic and incoherent,

0:01:40.000,0:01:43.000
which some of us refer to as noise.

0:01:43.000,0:01:46.000
There was a time when I considered wild soundscapes

0:01:46.000,0:01:48.000
to be a worthless artifact.

0:01:48.000,0:01:52.000
They were just there, but they had no significance.

0:01:52.000,0:01:55.000
Well, I was wrong. What I learned from these encounters

0:01:55.000,0:02:00.000
was that careful listening gives us incredibly valuable tools

0:02:00.000,0:02:03.000
by which to evaluate the health of a habitat

0:02:03.000,0:02:06.000
across the entire spectrum of life.

0:02:06.000,0:02:10.000
When I began recording in the late '60s,

0:02:10.000,0:02:13.000
the typical methods of recording were limited

0:02:13.000,0:02:17.000
to the fragmented capture of individual species

0:02:17.000,0:02:21.000
like birds mostly, in the beginning,

0:02:21.000,0:02:26.000
but later animals like mammals and amphibians.

0:02:26.000,0:02:30.000
To me, this was a little like trying to understand

0:02:30.000,0:02:33.000
the magnificence of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony

0:02:33.000,0:02:36.000
by abstracting the sound of a single violin player

0:02:36.000,0:02:38.000
out of the context of the orchestra

0:02:38.000,0:02:41.000
and hearing just that one part.

0:02:41.000,0:02:44.000
Fortunately, more and more institutions

0:02:44.000,0:02:46.000
are implementing the more holistic models

0:02:46.000,0:02:49.000
that I and a few of my colleagues have introduced

0:02:49.000,0:02:53.000
to the field of soundscape ecology.

0:02:53.000,0:02:58.000
When I began recording over four decades ago,

0:02:58.000,0:03:00.000
I could record for 10 hours

0:03:00.000,0:03:02.000
and capture one hour of usable material,

0:03:02.000,0:03:05.000
good enough for an album or a film soundtrack

0:03:05.000,0:03:08.000
or a museum installation.

0:03:08.000,0:03:11.000
Now, because of global warming,

0:03:11.000,0:03:13.000
resource extraction,

0:03:13.000,0:03:16.000
and human noise, among many other factors,

0:03:16.000,0:03:18.000
it can take up to 1,000 hours or more

0:03:18.000,0:03:21.000
to capture the same thing.

0:03:21.000,0:03:24.000
Fully 50 percent of my archive

0:03:24.000,0:03:27.000
comes from habitats so radically altered

0:03:27.000,0:03:30.000
that they're either altogether silent

0:03:30.000,0:03:35.000
or can no longer be heard in any of their original form.

0:03:35.000,0:03:37.000
The usual methods of evaluating a habitat

0:03:37.000,0:03:41.000
have been done by visually counting the numbers of species

0:03:41.000,0:03:45.000
and the numbers of individuals within each species in a given area.

0:03:45.000,0:03:48.000
However, by comparing data that ties together

0:03:48.000,0:03:51.000
both density and diversity from what we hear,

0:03:51.000,0:03:57.000
I'm able to arrive at much more precise fitness outcomes.

0:03:57.000,0:03:59.000
And I want to show you some examples

0:03:59.000,0:04:01.000
that typify the possibilities unlocked

0:04:01.000,0:04:04.000
by diving into this universe.

0:04:04.000,0:04:06.000
This is Lincoln Meadow.

0:04:06.000,0:04:08.000
Lincoln Meadow's a three-and-a-half-hour drive

0:04:08.000,0:04:11.000
east of San Francisco in the Sierra Nevada Mountains,

0:04:11.000,0:04:13.000
at about 2,000 meters altitude,

0:04:13.000,0:04:16.000
and I've been recording there for many years.

0:04:16.000,0:04:20.000
In 1988, a logging company convinced local residents

0:04:20.000,0:04:23.000
that there would be absolutely no environmental impact

0:04:23.000,0:04:24.000
from a new method they were trying

0:04:24.000,0:04:26.000
called "selective logging,"

0:04:26.000,0:04:28.000
taking out a tree here and there

0:04:28.000,0:04:31.000
rather than clear-cutting a whole area.

0:04:31.000,0:04:33.000
With permission granted to record

0:04:33.000,0:04:35.000
both before and after the operation,

0:04:35.000,0:04:39.000
I set up my gear and captured a large number of dawn choruses

0:04:39.000,0:04:43.000
to very strict protocol and calibrated recordings,

0:04:43.000,0:04:45.000
because I wanted a really good baseline.

0:04:45.000,0:04:47.000
This is an example of a spectrogram.

0:04:47.000,0:04:50.000
A spectrogram is a graphic illustration of sound

0:04:50.000,0:04:53.000
with time from left to right across the page --

0:04:53.000,0:04:55.000
15 seconds in this case is represented —

0:04:55.000,0:04:58.000
and frequency from the bottom of the page to the top,

0:04:58.000,0:05:00.000
lowest to highest.

0:05:00.000,0:05:03.000
And you can see that the signature of a stream

0:05:03.000,0:05:07.000
is represented here in the bottom third or half of the page,

0:05:07.000,0:05:11.000
while birds that were once in that meadow

0:05:11.000,0:05:14.000
are represented in the signature across the top.

0:05:14.000,0:05:15.000
There were a lot of them.

0:05:15.000,0:05:18.000
And here's Lincoln Meadow before selective logging.

0:05:18.000,0:05:33.000
(Nature sounds)

0:05:33.000,0:05:35.000
Well, a year later I returned,

0:05:35.000,0:05:37.000
and using the same protocols

0:05:37.000,0:05:39.000
and recording under the same conditions,

0:05:39.000,0:05:42.000
I recorded a number of examples

0:05:42.000,0:05:44.000
of the same dawn choruses,

0:05:44.000,0:05:46.000
and now this is what we've got.

0:05:46.000,0:05:47.000
This is after selective logging.

0:05:47.000,0:05:49.000
You can see that the stream is still represented

0:05:49.000,0:05:51.000
in the bottom third of the page,

0:05:51.000,0:05:56.000
but notice what's missing in the top two thirds.

0:05:56.000,0:06:01.000
(Nature sounds)

0:06:01.000,0:06:11.000
Coming up is the sound of a woodpecker.

0:06:11.000,0:06:13.000
Well, I've returned to Lincoln Meadow 15 times

0:06:13.000,0:06:15.000
in the last 25 years,

0:06:15.000,0:06:18.000
and I can tell you that the biophony,

0:06:18.000,0:06:21.000
the density and diversity of that biophony,

0:06:21.000,0:06:24.000
has not yet returned to anything like it was

0:06:24.000,0:06:26.000
before the operation.

0:06:26.000,0:06:29.000
But here's a picture of Lincoln Meadow taken after,

0:06:29.000,0:06:32.000
and you can see that from the perspective of the camera

0:06:32.000,0:06:34.000
or the human eye,

0:06:34.000,0:06:36.000
hardly a stick or a tree appears to be out of place,

0:06:36.000,0:06:39.000
which would confirm the logging company's contention

0:06:39.000,0:06:42.000
that there's nothing of environmental impact.

0:06:42.000,0:06:48.000
However, our ears tell us a very different story.

0:06:48.000,0:06:50.000
Young students are always asking me

0:06:50.000,0:06:52.000
what these animals are saying,

0:06:52.000,0:06:56.000
and really I've got no idea.

0:06:56.000,0:07:02.000
But I can tell you that they do express themselves.

0:07:02.000,0:07:05.000
Whether or not we understand it is a different story.

0:07:05.000,0:07:07.000
I was walking along the shore in Alaska,

0:07:07.000,0:07:09.000
and I came across this tide pool

0:07:09.000,0:07:12.000
filled with a colony of sea anemones,

0:07:12.000,0:07:15.000
these wonderful eating machines,

0:07:15.000,0:07:17.000
relatives of coral and jellyfish.

0:07:17.000,0:07:20.000
And curious to see if any of them made any noise,

0:07:20.000,0:07:21.000
I dropped a hydrophone,

0:07:21.000,0:07:24.000
an underwater microphone covered in rubber,

0:07:24.000,0:07:25.000
down the mouth part,

0:07:25.000,0:07:27.000
and immediately the critter began

0:07:27.000,0:07:29.000
to absorb the microphone into its belly,

0:07:29.000,0:07:32.000
and the tentacles were searching out of the surface

0:07:32.000,0:07:34.000
for something of nutritional value.

0:07:34.000,0:07:37.000
The static-like sounds that are very low,

0:07:37.000,0:07:39.000
that you're going to hear right now.

0:07:39.000,0:07:43.000
(Static sounds)

0:07:43.000,0:07:46.000
Yeah, but watch. When it didn't find anything to eat --

0:07:46.000,0:07:47.000
(Honking sound)

0:07:47.000,0:07:50.000
(Laughter)

0:07:50.000,0:07:52.000
I think that's an expression that can be understood

0:07:52.000,0:07:54.000
in any language.

0:07:54.000,0:07:59.000
(Laughter)

0:07:59.000,0:08:00.000
At the end of its breeding cycle,

0:08:00.000,0:08:03.000
the Great Basin Spadefoot toad

0:08:03.000,0:08:05.000
digs itself down about a meter under

0:08:05.000,0:08:08.000
the hard-panned desert soil of the American West,

0:08:08.000,0:08:10.000
where it can stay for many seasons

0:08:10.000,0:08:13.000
until conditions are just right for it to emerge again.

0:08:13.000,0:08:15.000
And when there's enough moisture in the soil

0:08:15.000,0:08:18.000
in the spring, frogs will dig themselves to the surface

0:08:18.000,0:08:22.000
and gather around these large, vernal pools

0:08:22.000,0:08:24.000
in great numbers.

0:08:24.000,0:08:28.000
And they vocalize in a chorus

0:08:28.000,0:08:31.000
that's absolutely in sync with one another.

0:08:31.000,0:08:32.000
And they do that for two reasons.

0:08:32.000,0:08:36.000
The first is competitive, because they're looking for mates,

0:08:36.000,0:08:37.000
and the second is cooperative,

0:08:37.000,0:08:40.000
because if they're all vocalizing in sync together,

0:08:40.000,0:08:44.000
it makes it really difficult for predators like coyotes,

0:08:44.000,0:08:48.000
foxes and owls to single out any individual for a meal.

0:08:48.000,0:08:51.000
This is a spectrogram of what the frog chorusing looks like

0:08:51.000,0:08:54.000
when it's in a very healthy pattern.

0:08:54.000,0:09:04.000
(Frogs croaking)

0:09:04.000,0:09:08.000
Mono Lake is just to the east of Yosemite National Park

0:09:08.000,0:09:09.000
in California,

0:09:09.000,0:09:12.000
and it's a favorite habitat of these toads,

0:09:12.000,0:09:15.000
and it's also favored by U.S. Navy jet pilots,

0:09:15.000,0:09:18.000
who train in their fighters flying them at speeds

0:09:18.000,0:09:21.000
exceeding 1,100 kilometers an hour

0:09:21.000,0:09:23.000
and altitudes only a couple hundred meters

0:09:23.000,0:09:26.000
above ground level of the Mono Basin,

0:09:26.000,0:09:30.000
very fast, very low, and so loud

0:09:30.000,0:09:33.000
that the anthrophony, the human noise,

0:09:33.000,0:09:34.000
even though it's six and a half kilometers

0:09:34.000,0:09:37.000
from the frog pond you just heard a second ago,

0:09:37.000,0:09:41.000
it masked the sound of the chorusing toads.

0:09:41.000,0:09:44.000
You can see in this spectrogram that all of the energy

0:09:44.000,0:09:47.000
that was once in the first spectrogram is gone

0:09:47.000,0:09:49.000
from the top end of the spectrogram,

0:09:49.000,0:09:51.000
and that there's breaks in the chorusing at two and a half,

0:09:51.000,0:09:54.000
four and a half, and six and a half seconds,

0:09:54.000,0:09:57.000
and then the sound of the jet, the signature,

0:09:57.000,0:09:59.000
is in yellow at the very bottom of the page.

0:09:59.000,0:10:09.000
(Frogs croaking)

0:10:09.000,0:10:11.000
Now at the end of that flyby,

0:10:11.000,0:10:15.000
it took the frogs fully 45 minutes

0:10:15.000,0:10:17.000
to regain their chorusing synchronicity,

0:10:17.000,0:10:20.000
during which time, and under a full moon,

0:10:20.000,0:10:23.000
we watched as two coyotes and a great horned owl

0:10:23.000,0:10:26.000
came in to pick off a few of their numbers.

0:10:26.000,0:10:30.000
The good news is that, with a little bit of habitat restoration

0:10:30.000,0:10:32.000
and fewer flights, the frog populations,

0:10:32.000,0:10:36.000
once diminishing during the 1980s and early '90s,

0:10:36.000,0:10:40.000
have pretty much returned to normal.

0:10:40.000,0:10:43.000
I want to end with a story told by a beaver.

0:10:43.000,0:10:44.000
It's a very sad story,

0:10:44.000,0:10:48.000
but it really illustrates how animals

0:10:48.000,0:10:50.000
can sometimes show emotion,

0:10:50.000,0:10:55.000
a very controversial subject among some older biologists.

0:10:55.000,0:10:58.000
A colleague of mine was recording in the American Midwest

0:10:58.000,0:11:00.000
around this pond that had been formed

0:11:00.000,0:11:04.000
maybe 16,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.

0:11:04.000,0:11:06.000
It was also formed in part by a beaver dam

0:11:06.000,0:11:09.000
at one end that held that whole ecosystem together

0:11:09.000,0:11:12.000
in a very delicate balance.

0:11:12.000,0:11:16.000
And one afternoon, while he was recording,

0:11:16.000,0:11:20.000
there suddenly appeared from out of nowhere

0:11:20.000,0:11:22.000
a couple of game wardens,

0:11:22.000,0:11:24.000
who for no apparent reason,

0:11:24.000,0:11:25.000
walked over to the beaver dam,

0:11:25.000,0:11:29.000
dropped a stick of dynamite down it, blowing it up,

0:11:29.000,0:11:33.000
killing the female and her young babies.

0:11:33.000,0:11:35.000
Horrified, my colleagues remained behind

0:11:35.000,0:11:38.000
to gather his thoughts

0:11:38.000,0:11:41.000
and to record whatever he could the rest of the afternoon,

0:11:41.000,0:11:46.000
and that evening, he captured a remarkable event:

0:11:46.000,0:11:50.000
the lone surviving male beaver swimming in slow circles

0:11:50.000,0:11:56.000
crying out inconsolably for its lost mate and offspring.

0:11:56.000,0:11:59.000
This is probably the saddest sound

0:11:59.000,0:12:02.000
I've ever heard coming from any organism,

0:12:02.000,0:12:04.000
human or other.

0:12:06.000,0:12:22.000
(Beaver crying)

0:12:22.000,0:12:23.000
Yeah. Well.

0:12:23.000,0:12:26.000
There are many facets to soundscapes,

0:12:26.000,0:12:29.000
among them the ways in which animals taught us to dance and sing,

0:12:29.000,0:12:32.000
which I'll save for another time.

0:12:32.000,0:12:35.000
But you have heard how biophonies

0:12:35.000,0:12:39.000
help clarify our understanding of the natural world.

0:12:39.000,0:12:41.000
You've heard the impact of resource extraction,

0:12:41.000,0:12:44.000
human noise and habitat destruction.

0:12:44.000,0:12:46.000
And where environmental sciences have typically

0:12:46.000,0:12:50.000
tried to understand the world from what we see,

0:12:50.000,0:12:54.000
a much fuller understanding can be got from what we hear.

0:12:54.000,0:12:58.000
Biophonies and geophonies are the signature voices

0:12:58.000,0:13:00.000
of the natural world,

0:13:00.000,0:13:01.000
and as we hear them,

0:13:01.000,0:13:04.000
we're endowed with a sense of place,

0:13:04.000,0:13:07.000
the true story of the world we live in.

0:13:07.000,0:13:09.000
In a matter of seconds,

0:13:09.000,0:13:12.000
a soundscape reveals much more information

0:13:12.000,0:13:14.000
from many perspectives,

0:13:14.000,0:13:18.000
from quantifiable data to cultural inspiration.

0:13:18.000,0:13:21.000
Visual capture implicitly frames

0:13:21.000,0:13:25.000
a limited frontal perspective of a given spatial context,

0:13:25.000,0:13:27.000
while soundscapes widen that scope

0:13:27.000,0:13:33.000
to a full 360 degrees, completely enveloping us.

0:13:33.000,0:13:36.000
And while a picture may be worth 1,000 words,

0:13:36.000,0:13:41.000
a soundscape is worth 1,000 pictures.

0:13:41.000,0:13:43.000
And our ears tell us

0:13:43.000,0:13:47.000
that the whisper of every leaf and creature

0:13:47.000,0:13:50.000
speaks to the natural sources of our lives,

0:13:50.000,0:13:55.000
which indeed may hold the secrets of love for all things,

0:13:55.000,0:13:57.000
especially our own humanity,

0:13:57.000,0:14:03.000
and the last word goes to a jaguar from the Amazon.

0:14:03.000,0:14:17.000
(Growling)

0:14:17.000,0:14:19.000
Thank you for listening.

0:14:19.000,0:14:25.000
(Applause)