The voice of the natural world
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0:02 - 0:07(Nature sounds)
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0:07 - 0:10When I first began recording wild soundscapes
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0:10 - 0:1245 years ago,
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0:12 - 0:14I had no idea that ants,
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0:14 - 0:18insect larvae, sea anemones and viruses
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0:18 - 0:20created a sound signature.
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0:20 - 0:21But they do.
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0:21 - 0:25And so does every wild habitat on the planet,
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0:25 - 0:28like the Amazon rainforest you're hearing behind me.
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0:28 - 0:32In fact, temperate and tropical rainforests
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0:32 - 0:35each produce a vibrant animal orchestra,
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0:35 - 0:38that instantaneous and organized expression
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0:38 - 0:43of insects, reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals.
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0:43 - 0:46And every soundscape that springs from a wild habitat
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0:46 - 0:49generates its own unique signature,
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0:49 - 0:52one that contains incredible amounts of information,
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0:52 - 0:57and it's some of that information I want to share with you today.
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0:57 - 1:00The soundscape is made up of three basic sources.
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1:00 - 1:02The first is the geophony,
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1:02 - 1:05or the nonbiological sounds that occur
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1:05 - 1:07in any given habitat,
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1:07 - 1:09like wind in the trees, water in a stream,
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1:09 - 1:13waves at the ocean shore, movement of the Earth.
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1:13 - 1:16The second of these is the biophony.
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1:16 - 1:19The biophony is all of the sound
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1:19 - 1:22that's generated by organisms in a given habitat
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1:22 - 1:26at one time and in one place.
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1:26 - 1:31And the third is all of the sound that we humans generate
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1:31 - 1:32that's called anthrophony.
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1:32 - 1:36Some of it is controlled, like music or theater,
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1:36 - 1:40but most of it is chaotic and incoherent,
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1:40 - 1:43which some of us refer to as noise.
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1:43 - 1:46There was a time when I considered wild soundscapes
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1:46 - 1:48to be a worthless artifact.
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1:48 - 1:52They were just there, but they had no significance.
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1:52 - 1:55Well, I was wrong. What I learned from these encounters
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1:55 - 2:00was that careful listening gives us incredibly valuable tools
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2:00 - 2:03by which to evaluate the health of a habitat
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2:03 - 2:06across the entire spectrum of life.
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2:06 - 2:10When I began recording in the late '60s,
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2:10 - 2:13the typical methods of recording were limited
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2:13 - 2:17to the fragmented capture of individual species
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2:17 - 2:21like birds mostly, in the beginning,
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2:21 - 2:26but later animals like mammals and amphibians.
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2:26 - 2:30To me, this was a little like trying to understand
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2:30 - 2:33the magnificence of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony
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2:33 - 2:36by abstracting the sound of a single violin player
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2:36 - 2:38out of the context of the orchestra
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2:38 - 2:41and hearing just that one part.
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2:41 - 2:44Fortunately, more and more institutions
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2:44 - 2:46are implementing the more holistic models
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2:46 - 2:49that I and a few of my colleagues have introduced
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2:49 - 2:53to the field of soundscape ecology.
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2:53 - 2:58When I began recording over four decades ago,
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2:58 - 3:00I could record for 10 hours
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3:00 - 3:02and capture one hour of usable material,
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3:02 - 3:05good enough for an album or a film soundtrack
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3:05 - 3:08or a museum installation.
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3:08 - 3:11Now, because of global warming,
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3:11 - 3:13resource extraction,
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3:13 - 3:16and human noise, among many other factors,
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3:16 - 3:18it can take up to 1,000 hours or more
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3:18 - 3:21to capture the same thing.
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3:21 - 3:24Fully 50 percent of my archive
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3:24 - 3:27comes from habitats so radically altered
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3:27 - 3:30that they're either altogether silent
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3:30 - 3:35or can no longer be heard in any of their original form.
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3:35 - 3:37The usual methods of evaluating a habitat
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3:37 - 3:41have been done by visually counting the numbers of species
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3:41 - 3:45and the numbers of individuals within each species in a given area.
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3:45 - 3:48However, by comparing data that ties together
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3:48 - 3:51both density and diversity from what we hear,
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3:51 - 3:57I'm able to arrive at much more precise fitness outcomes.
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3:57 - 3:59And I want to show you some examples
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3:59 - 4:01that typify the possibilities unlocked
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4:01 - 4:04by diving into this universe.
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4:04 - 4:06This is Lincoln Meadow.
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4:06 - 4:08Lincoln Meadow's a three-and-a-half-hour drive
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4:08 - 4:11east of San Francisco in the Sierra Nevada Mountains,
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4:11 - 4:13at about 2,000 meters altitude,
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4:13 - 4:16and I've been recording there for many years.
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4:16 - 4:20In 1988, a logging company convinced local residents
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4:20 - 4:23that there would be absolutely no environmental impact
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4:23 - 4:24from a new method they were trying
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4:24 - 4:26called "selective logging,"
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4:26 - 4:28taking out a tree here and there
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4:28 - 4:31rather than clear-cutting a whole area.
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4:31 - 4:33With permission granted to record
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4:33 - 4:35both before and after the operation,
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4:35 - 4:39I set up my gear and captured a large number of dawn choruses
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4:39 - 4:43to very strict protocol and calibrated recordings,
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4:43 - 4:45because I wanted a really good baseline.
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4:45 - 4:47This is an example of a spectrogram.
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4:47 - 4:50A spectrogram is a graphic illustration of sound
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4:50 - 4:53with time from left to right across the page --
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4:53 - 4:5515 seconds in this case is represented —
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4:55 - 4:58and frequency from the bottom of the page to the top,
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4:58 - 5:00lowest to highest.
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5:00 - 5:03And you can see that the signature of a stream
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5:03 - 5:07is represented here in the bottom third or half of the page,
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5:07 - 5:11while birds that were once in that meadow
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5:11 - 5:14are represented in the signature across the top.
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5:14 - 5:15There were a lot of them.
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5:15 - 5:18And here's Lincoln Meadow before selective logging.
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5:18 - 5:33(Nature sounds)
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5:33 - 5:35Well, a year later I returned,
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5:35 - 5:37and using the same protocols
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5:37 - 5:39and recording under the same conditions,
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5:39 - 5:42I recorded a number of examples
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5:42 - 5:44of the same dawn choruses,
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5:44 - 5:46and now this is what we've got.
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5:46 - 5:47This is after selective logging.
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5:47 - 5:49You can see that the stream is still represented
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5:49 - 5:51in the bottom third of the page,
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5:51 - 5:56but notice what's missing in the top two thirds.
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5:56 - 6:01(Nature sounds)
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6:01 - 6:11Coming up is the sound of a woodpecker.
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6:11 - 6:13Well, I've returned to Lincoln Meadow 15 times
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6:13 - 6:15in the last 25 years,
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6:15 - 6:18and I can tell you that the biophony,
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6:18 - 6:21the density and diversity of that biophony,
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6:21 - 6:24has not yet returned to anything like it was
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6:24 - 6:26before the operation.
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6:26 - 6:29But here's a picture of Lincoln Meadow taken after,
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6:29 - 6:32and you can see that from the perspective of the camera
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6:32 - 6:34or the human eye,
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6:34 - 6:36hardly a stick or a tree appears to be out of place,
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6:36 - 6:39which would confirm the logging company's contention
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6:39 - 6:42that there's nothing of environmental impact.
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6:42 - 6:48However, our ears tell us a very different story.
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6:48 - 6:50Young students are always asking me
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6:50 - 6:52what these animals are saying,
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6:52 - 6:56and really I've got no idea.
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6:56 - 7:02But I can tell you that they do express themselves.
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7:02 - 7:05Whether or not we understand it is a different story.
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7:05 - 7:07I was walking along the shore in Alaska,
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7:07 - 7:09and I came across this tide pool
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7:09 - 7:12filled with a colony of sea anemones,
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7:12 - 7:15these wonderful eating machines,
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7:15 - 7:17relatives of coral and jellyfish.
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7:17 - 7:20And curious to see if any of them made any noise,
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7:20 - 7:21I dropped a hydrophone,
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7:21 - 7:24an underwater microphone covered in rubber,
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7:24 - 7:25down the mouth part,
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7:25 - 7:27and immediately the critter began
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7:27 - 7:29to absorb the microphone into its belly,
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7:29 - 7:32and the tentacles were searching out of the surface
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7:32 - 7:34for something of nutritional value.
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7:34 - 7:37The static-like sounds that are very low,
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7:37 - 7:39that you're going to hear right now.
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7:39 - 7:43(Static sounds)
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7:43 - 7:46Yeah, but watch. When it didn't find anything to eat --
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7:46 - 7:47(Honking sound)
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7:47 - 7:50(Laughter)
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7:50 - 7:52I think that's an expression that can be understood
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7:52 - 7:54in any language.
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7:54 - 7:59(Laughter)
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7:59 - 8:00At the end of its breeding cycle,
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8:00 - 8:03the Great Basin Spadefoot toad
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8:03 - 8:05digs itself down about a meter under
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8:05 - 8:08the hard-panned desert soil of the American West,
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8:08 - 8:10where it can stay for many seasons
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8:10 - 8:13until conditions are just right for it to emerge again.
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8:13 - 8:15And when there's enough moisture in the soil
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8:15 - 8:18in the spring, frogs will dig themselves to the surface
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8:18 - 8:22and gather around these large, vernal pools
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8:22 - 8:24in great numbers.
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8:24 - 8:28And they vocalize in a chorus
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8:28 - 8:31that's absolutely in sync with one another.
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8:31 - 8:32And they do that for two reasons.
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8:32 - 8:36The first is competitive, because they're looking for mates,
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8:36 - 8:37and the second is cooperative,
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8:37 - 8:40because if they're all vocalizing in sync together,
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8:40 - 8:44it makes it really difficult for predators like coyotes,
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8:44 - 8:48foxes and owls to single out any individual for a meal.
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8:48 - 8:51This is a spectrogram of what the frog chorusing looks like
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8:51 - 8:54when it's in a very healthy pattern.
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8:54 - 9:04(Frogs croaking)
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9:04 - 9:08Mono Lake is just to the east of Yosemite National Park
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9:08 - 9:09in California,
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9:09 - 9:12and it's a favorite habitat of these toads,
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9:12 - 9:15and it's also favored by U.S. Navy jet pilots,
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9:15 - 9:18who train in their fighters flying them at speeds
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9:18 - 9:21exceeding 1,100 kilometers an hour
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9:21 - 9:23and altitudes only a couple hundred meters
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9:23 - 9:26above ground level of the Mono Basin,
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9:26 - 9:30very fast, very low, and so loud
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9:30 - 9:33that the anthrophony, the human noise,
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9:33 - 9:34even though it's six and a half kilometers
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9:34 - 9:37from the frog pond you just heard a second ago,
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9:37 - 9:41it masked the sound of the chorusing toads.
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9:41 - 9:44You can see in this spectrogram that all of the energy
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9:44 - 9:47that was once in the first spectrogram is gone
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9:47 - 9:49from the top end of the spectrogram,
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9:49 - 9:51and that there's breaks in the chorusing at two and a half,
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9:51 - 9:54four and a half, and six and a half seconds,
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9:54 - 9:57and then the sound of the jet, the signature,
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9:57 - 9:59is in yellow at the very bottom of the page.
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9:59 - 10:09(Frogs croaking)
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10:09 - 10:11Now at the end of that flyby,
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10:11 - 10:15it took the frogs fully 45 minutes
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10:15 - 10:17to regain their chorusing synchronicity,
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10:17 - 10:20during which time, and under a full moon,
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10:20 - 10:23we watched as two coyotes and a great horned owl
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10:23 - 10:26came in to pick off a few of their numbers.
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10:26 - 10:30The good news is that, with a little bit of habitat restoration
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10:30 - 10:32and fewer flights, the frog populations,
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10:32 - 10:36once diminishing during the 1980s and early '90s,
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10:36 - 10:40have pretty much returned to normal.
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10:40 - 10:43I want to end with a story told by a beaver.
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10:43 - 10:44It's a very sad story,
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10:44 - 10:48but it really illustrates how animals
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10:48 - 10:50can sometimes show emotion,
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10:50 - 10:55a very controversial subject among some older biologists.
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10:55 - 10:58A colleague of mine was recording in the American Midwest
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10:58 - 11:00around this pond that had been formed
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11:00 - 11:04maybe 16,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.
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11:04 - 11:06It was also formed in part by a beaver dam
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11:06 - 11:09at one end that held that whole ecosystem together
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11:09 - 11:12in a very delicate balance.
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11:12 - 11:16And one afternoon, while he was recording,
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11:16 - 11:20there suddenly appeared from out of nowhere
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11:20 - 11:22a couple of game wardens,
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11:22 - 11:24who for no apparent reason,
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11:24 - 11:25walked over to the beaver dam,
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11:25 - 11:29dropped a stick of dynamite down it, blowing it up,
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11:29 - 11:33killing the female and her young babies.
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11:33 - 11:35Horrified, my colleagues remained behind
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11:35 - 11:38to gather his thoughts
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11:38 - 11:41and to record whatever he could the rest of the afternoon,
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11:41 - 11:46and that evening, he captured a remarkable event:
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11:46 - 11:50the lone surviving male beaver swimming in slow circles
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11:50 - 11:56crying out inconsolably for its lost mate and offspring.
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11:56 - 11:59This is probably the saddest sound
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11:59 - 12:02I've ever heard coming from any organism,
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12:02 - 12:04human or other.
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12:06 - 12:22(Beaver crying)
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12:22 - 12:23Yeah. Well.
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12:23 - 12:26There are many facets to soundscapes,
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12:26 - 12:29among them the ways in which animals taught us to dance and sing,
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12:29 - 12:32which I'll save for another time.
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12:32 - 12:35But you have heard how biophonies
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12:35 - 12:39help clarify our understanding of the natural world.
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12:39 - 12:41You've heard the impact of resource extraction,
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12:41 - 12:44human noise and habitat destruction.
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12:44 - 12:46And where environmental sciences have typically
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12:46 - 12:50tried to understand the world from what we see,
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12:50 - 12:54a much fuller understanding can be got from what we hear.
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12:54 - 12:58Biophonies and geophonies are the signature voices
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12:58 - 13:00of the natural world,
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13:00 - 13:01and as we hear them,
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13:01 - 13:04we're endowed with a sense of place,
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13:04 - 13:07the true story of the world we live in.
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13:07 - 13:09In a matter of seconds,
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13:09 - 13:12a soundscape reveals much more information
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13:12 - 13:14from many perspectives,
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13:14 - 13:18from quantifiable data to cultural inspiration.
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13:18 - 13:21Visual capture implicitly frames
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13:21 - 13:25a limited frontal perspective of a given spatial context,
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13:25 - 13:27while soundscapes widen that scope
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13:27 - 13:33to a full 360 degrees, completely enveloping us.
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13:33 - 13:36And while a picture may be worth 1,000 words,
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13:36 - 13:41a soundscape is worth 1,000 pictures.
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13:41 - 13:43And our ears tell us
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13:43 - 13:47that the whisper of every leaf and creature
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13:47 - 13:50speaks to the natural sources of our lives,
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13:50 - 13:55which indeed may hold the secrets of love for all things,
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13:55 - 13:57especially our own humanity,
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13:57 - 14:03and the last word goes to a jaguar from the Amazon.
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14:03 - 14:17(Growling)
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14:17 - 14:19Thank you for listening.
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14:19 - 14:25(Applause)
- Title:
- The voice of the natural world
- Speaker:
- Bernie Krause
- Description:
-
Bernie Krause has been recording wild soundscapes -- the wind in the trees, the chirping of birds, the subtle sounds of insect larvae -- for 45 years. In that time, he has seen many environments radically altered by humans, sometimes even by practices thought to be environmentally safe. A surprising look at what we can learn through nature's symphonies, from the grunting of a sea anemone to the sad calls of a beaver in mourning.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 14:48
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for The voice of the natural world | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for The voice of the natural world | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for The voice of the natural world | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for The voice of the natural world | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for The voice of the natural world | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for The voice of the natural world | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for The voice of the natural world | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for The voice of the natural world |