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(Nature sounds)

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When I first began[br]recording wild soundscapes

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45 years ago,

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I had no idea that ants,

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insect larvae, sea anemones and viruses

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created a sound signature.

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But they do.

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And so does every wild[br]habitat on the planet,

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like the Amazon rainforest[br]you're hearing behind me.

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In fact, temperate[br]and tropical rainforests

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each produce a vibrant animal orchestra,

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that instantaneous[br]and organized expression

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of insects, reptiles,[br]amphibians, birds and mammals.

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And every soundscape[br]that springs from a wild habitat

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generates its own unique signature,

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one that contains incredible[br]amounts of information,

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and it's some of that information[br]I want to share with you today.

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The soundscape is made[br]up of three basic sources.

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The first is the geophony,

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or the nonbiological sounds that occur

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in any given habitat,

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like wind in the trees, water in a stream,

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waves at the ocean shore,[br]movement of the Earth.

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The second of these is the biophony.

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The biophony is all of the sound

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that's generated by organisms[br]in a given habitat

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at one time and in one place.

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And the third is all of the sound[br]that we humans generate

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that's called anthrophony.

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Some of it is controlled,[br]like music or theater,

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but most of it is chaotic and incoherent,

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which some of us refer to as noise.

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There was a time when[br]I considered wild soundscapes

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to be a worthless artifact.

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They were just there,[br]but they had no significance.

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Well, I was wrong. What[br]I learned from these encounters

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was that careful listening gives[br]us incredibly valuable tools

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by which to evaluate[br]the health of a habitat

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across the entire spectrum of life.

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When I began recording in the late '60s,

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the typical methods[br]of recording were limited

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to the fragmented capture[br]of individual species

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like birds mostly, in the beginning,

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but later animals[br]like mammals and amphibians.

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To me, this was a little like trying[br]to understand

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the magnificence[br]of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony

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by abstracting the sound[br]of a single violin player

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out of the context of the orchestra

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and hearing just that one part.

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Fortunately, more and more institutions

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are implementing the more holistic models

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that I and a few of my colleagues[br]have introduced

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to the field of soundscape ecology.

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When I began recording[br]over four decades ago,

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I could record for 10 hours

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and capture one hour of usable material,

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good enough for an album[br]or a film soundtrack

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or a museum installation.

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Now, because of global warming,

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resource extraction,

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and human noise, among many other factors,

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it can take up to 1,000 hours or more

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to capture the same thing.

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Fully 50 percent of my archive

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comes from habitats so radically altered

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that they're either altogether silent

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or can no longer be heard[br]in any of their original form.

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The usual methods of evaluating a habitat

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have been done by visually[br]counting the numbers of species

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and the numbers of individuals[br]within each species in a given area.

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However, by comparing[br]data that ties together

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both density and diversity[br]from what we hear,

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I'm able to arrive at much[br]more precise fitness outcomes.

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And I want to show you some examples

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that typify the possibilities unlocked

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by diving into this universe.

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This is Lincoln Meadow.

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Lincoln[br]Meadow's a three-and-a-half-hour drive

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east of San Francisco[br]in the Sierra Nevada Mountains,

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at about 2,000 meters altitude,

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and I've been recording[br]there for many years.

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In 1988, a logging company[br]convinced local residents

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that there would be absolutely[br]no environmental impact

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from a new method they were trying

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called "selective logging,"

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taking out a tree here and there

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rather than clear-cutting a whole area.

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With permission granted to record

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both before and after the operation,

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I set up my gear and captured[br]a large number of dawn choruses

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to very strict protocol[br]and calibrated recordings,

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because I wanted a really good baseline.

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This is an example of a spectrogram.

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A spectrogram is a graphic[br]illustration of sound

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with time from left[br]to right across the page --

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15 seconds in this case is represented —

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and frequency from the bottom[br]of the page to the top,

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lowest to highest.

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And you can see[br]that the signature of a stream

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is represented here in the bottom[br]third or half of the page,

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while birds that were once in that meadow

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are represented in the signature[br]across the top.

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There were a lot of them.

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And here's Lincoln Meadow[br]before selective logging.

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(Nature sounds)

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Well, a year later I returned,

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and using the same protocols

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and recording under the same conditions,

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I recorded a number of examples

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of the same dawn choruses,

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and now this is what we've got.

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This is after selective logging.

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You can see that the stream[br]is still represented

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in the bottom third of the page,

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but notice what's missing[br]in the top two thirds.

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(Nature sounds)

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Coming up is the sound of a woodpecker.

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Well, I've returned[br]to Lincoln Meadow 15 times

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in the last 25 years,

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and I can tell you that the biophony,

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the density and diversity[br]of that biophony,

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has not yet returned[br]to anything like it was

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before the operation.

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But here's a picture[br]of Lincoln Meadow taken after,

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and you can see[br]that from the perspective of the camera

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or the human eye,

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hardly a stick or a tree[br]appears to be out of place,

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which would confirm the logging[br]company's contention

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that there's nothing[br]of environmental impact.

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However, our ears tell us[br]a very different story.

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Young students are always asking me

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what these animals are saying,

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and really I've got no idea.

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But I can tell you that they do[br]express themselves.

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Whether or not we understand[br]it is a different story.

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I was walking along the shore in Alaska,

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and I came across this tide pool

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filled with a colony of sea anemones,

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these wonderful eating machines,

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relatives of coral and jellyfish.

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And curious to see[br]if any of them made any noise,

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I dropped a hydrophone,

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an underwater microphone[br]covered in rubber,

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down the mouth part,

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and immediately the critter began

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to absorb the microphone into its belly,

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and the tentacles were[br]searching out of the surface

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for something of nutritional value.

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The static-like sounds that are very low,

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that you're going to hear right now.

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(Static sounds)

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Yeah, but watch. When it[br]didn't find anything to eat --

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(Honking sound)

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(Laughter)

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I think that's an expression[br]that can be understood

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in any language.

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(Laughter)

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At the end of its breeding cycle,

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the Great Basin Spadefoot toad

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digs itself down about a meter under

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the hard-panned desert[br]soil of the American West,

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where it can stay for many seasons

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until conditions are just[br]right for it to emerge again.

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And when there's enough moisture[br]in the soil

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in the spring, frogs will dig[br]themselves to the surface

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and gather around these[br]large, vernal pools

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in great numbers.

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And they vocalize in a chorus

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that's absolutely in sync[br]with one another.

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And they do that for two reasons.

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The first is competitive,[br]because they're looking for mates,

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and the second is cooperative,

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because if they're[br]all vocalizing in sync together,

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it makes it really difficult[br]for predators like coyotes,

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foxes and owls to single[br]out any individual for a meal.

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This is a spectrogram[br]of what the frog chorusing looks like

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when it's in a very healthy pattern.

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(Frogs croaking)

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Mono Lake is just to the east[br]of Yosemite National Park

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in California,

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and it's a favorite[br]habitat of these toads,

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and it's also favored by U.S.[br]Navy jet pilots,

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who train in their fighters[br]flying them at speeds

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exceeding 1,100 kilometers an hour

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and altitudes only a couple hundred meters

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above ground level of the Mono Basin,

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very fast, very low, and so loud

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that the anthrophony, the human noise,

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even though it's six and a half kilometers

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from the frog pond you[br]just heard a second ago,

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it masked the sound[br]of the chorusing toads.

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You can see in this spectrogram[br]that all of the energy

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that was once in the first[br]spectrogram is gone

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from the top end of the spectrogram,

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and that there's breaks[br]in the chorusing at two and a half,

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four and a half,[br]and six and a half seconds,

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and then the sound[br]of the jet, the signature,

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is in yellow at the very[br]bottom of the page.

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(Frogs croaking)

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Now at the end of that flyby,

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it took the frogs fully 45 minutes

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to regain their chorusing synchronicity,

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during which time, and under a full moon,

0:10:20.814,0:10:23.571
we watched as two coyotes[br]and a great horned owl

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came in to pick[br]off a few of their numbers.

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The good news is that, with a little bit[br]of habitat restoration

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and fewer flights, the frog populations,

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once diminishing[br]during the 1980s and early '90s,

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have pretty much returned to normal.

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I want to end with a story[br]told by a beaver.

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It's a very sad story,

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but it really illustrates how animals

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can sometimes show emotion,

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a very controversial subject[br]among some older biologists.

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A colleague of mine was recording[br]in the American Midwest

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around this pond that had been formed

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maybe 16,000 years ago at the end[br]of the last ice age.

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It was also formed in part by a beaver dam

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at one end that held[br]that whole ecosystem together

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in a very delicate balance.

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And one afternoon, while he was recording,

0:11:16.402,0:11:20.202
there suddenly appeared[br]from out of nowhere

0:11:20.226,0:11:22.650
a couple of game wardens,

0:11:22.674,0:11:24.245
who for no apparent reason,

0:11:24.269,0:11:25.824
walked over to the beaver dam,

0:11:25.848,0:11:29.106
dropped a stick of dynamite[br]down it, blowing it up,

0:11:29.130,0:11:33.136
killing the female and her young babies.

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Horrified, my colleagues remained behind

0:11:35.992,0:11:38.009
to gather his thoughts

0:11:38.033,0:11:41.493
and to record whatever he could[br]the rest of the afternoon,

0:11:41.517,0:11:46.386
and that evening, he captured[br]a remarkable event:

0:11:46.410,0:11:50.575
the lone surviving male beaver[br]swimming in slow circles

0:11:50.599,0:11:56.308
crying out inconsolably for its[br]lost mate and offspring.

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This is probably the saddest sound

0:11:59.241,0:12:02.135
I've ever heard coming from any organism,

0:12:02.159,0:12:04.878
human or other.

0:12:06.517,0:12:22.156
(Beaver crying)

0:12:22.180,0:12:23.971
Yeah. Well.

0:12:23.995,0:12:26.553
There are many facets to soundscapes,

0:12:26.577,0:12:29.769
among them the ways in which animals[br]taught us to dance and sing,

0:12:29.793,0:12:32.394
which I'll save for another time.

0:12:32.418,0:12:35.412
But you have heard how biophonies

0:12:35.436,0:12:39.255
help clarify our understanding[br]of the natural world.

0:12:39.279,0:12:41.719
You've heard the impact[br]of resource extraction,

0:12:41.743,0:12:44.783
human noise and habitat destruction.

0:12:44.807,0:12:47.046
And where environmental[br]sciences have typically

0:12:47.070,0:12:50.103
tried to understand[br]the world from what we see,

0:12:50.127,0:12:54.571
a much fuller understanding[br]can be got from what we hear.

0:12:54.595,0:12:58.428
Biophonies and geophonies[br]are the signature voices

0:12:58.452,0:13:00.419
of the natural world,

0:13:00.443,0:13:01.772
and as we hear them,

0:13:01.796,0:13:04.444
we're endowed with a sense of place,

0:13:04.468,0:13:07.861
the true story of the world we live in.

0:13:07.885,0:13:09.780
In a matter of seconds,

0:13:09.804,0:13:12.495
a soundscape reveals much more information

0:13:12.519,0:13:14.043
from many perspectives,

0:13:14.067,0:13:18.665
from quantifiable data[br]to cultural inspiration.

0:13:18.689,0:13:21.566
Visual capture implicitly frames

0:13:21.590,0:13:25.562
a limited frontal perspective[br]of a given spatial context,

0:13:25.586,0:13:27.935
while soundscapes widen that scope

0:13:27.959,0:13:33.120
to a full 360 degrees,[br]completely enveloping us.

0:13:33.144,0:13:36.892
And while a picture may[br]be worth 1,000 words,

0:13:36.916,0:13:41.265
a soundscape is worth 1,000 pictures.

0:13:41.289,0:13:43.389
And our ears tell us

0:13:43.413,0:13:46.984
that the whisper[br]of every leaf and creature

0:13:47.008,0:13:50.058
speaks to the natural[br]sources of our lives,

0:13:50.082,0:13:55.120
which indeed may hold the secrets[br]of love for all things,

0:13:55.144,0:13:57.078
especially our own humanity,

0:13:57.102,0:14:03.363
and the last word goes[br]to a jaguar from the Amazon.

0:14:03.387,0:14:17.111
(Growling)

0:14:17.135,0:14:19.311
Thank you for listening.

0:14:19.335,0:14:25.032
(Applause)