WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.240 --> 00:00:02.080 So you want to go up this road here and 2 00:00:02.080 --> 00:00:03.879 get to the roundabit. You take a left and then 3 00:00:03.919 --> 00:00:05.759 you go past the Murphy's house, you know, to Murphy's 4 00:00:05.759 --> 00:00:08.119 their young lad, Sean. I think you're over in London now. 5 00:00:08.199 --> 00:00:09.439 Oh yeah. 6 00:00:09.640 --> 00:00:15.839 FBD doesn't stand for frustratingly bad directions. FBD stands for support. 7 00:00:16.239 --> 00:00:18.920 We support van drivers in Ireland with up to seventy 8 00:00:18.960 --> 00:00:20.800 five percent off new van policies. 9 00:00:21.160 --> 00:00:22.800 FBD Insurance Support. 10 00:00:22.960 --> 00:00:23.640 It's what we do. 11 00:00:23.800 --> 00:00:26.239 Can't miss it. Once you pass there, a little terrier 12 00:00:26.280 --> 00:00:28.440 will start to chase yet and once he gives up, 13 00:00:28.519 --> 00:00:29.320 you should be there. 14 00:00:29.800 --> 00:00:32.479 Seventy five percent off based on five years no claims discount, 15 00:00:32.560 --> 00:00:35.719 terms and conditions apply. Underwritten by FBD Insurance Plc. FBD 16 00:00:35.799 --> 00:00:38.640 Insurance Group Limited, trading as FBD Insurance, is regulated by 17 00:00:38.640 --> 00:00:39.600 the Central Bank of Ireland. 18 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:44.079 Oh hey, we just won the twenty twenty two Webby 19 00:00:44.119 --> 00:00:46.600 Award for Best Host, which is a weird thing to 20 00:00:46.640 --> 00:00:49.320 say as the host of this podcast, especially since I'm 21 00:00:49.359 --> 00:00:52.000 recording this in my sister's garage. So who says you 22 00:00:52.079 --> 00:00:55.240 have to be professional to win things? Hi, it's Ali Ward. 23 00:00:55.280 --> 00:00:58.719 It's your Internet dad back with a fresh episode crafted 24 00:00:58.759 --> 00:01:01.320 for you just this week. So acoustic ecology, what the 25 00:01:01.320 --> 00:01:04.480 heck is it? So it's what sounds in nature tell 26 00:01:04.560 --> 00:01:08.120 us about who's living where. This whole episode is just 27 00:01:08.159 --> 00:01:10.879 like a nature app but with much more gossip. And 28 00:01:11.079 --> 00:01:13.519 we've got one of the world's best for this. So 29 00:01:13.560 --> 00:01:16.159 this ologist got his PhD in marine science from the 30 00:01:16.239 --> 00:01:19.840 University of Queensland and has worked in conservation in over 31 00:01:19.959 --> 00:01:24.519 twenty countries, from snow leopard tracking at Mongolia to big 32 00:01:24.560 --> 00:01:27.560 grass munchers and Kenya and tiny bugs in Borneo. And 33 00:01:27.599 --> 00:01:31.879 he's co authored tons of research papers plus a book 34 00:01:31.920 --> 00:01:35.000 called Conservation Planning, and is currently the lead scientist and 35 00:01:35.040 --> 00:01:38.719 Director of Conservation for the Nature Conservancies Asia Pacific Region 36 00:01:39.120 --> 00:01:41.719 and has been given all kinds of awards for using 37 00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:46.959 technology and bioacoustics to help save our flaming, gasping, burning 38 00:01:47.200 --> 00:01:50.400 acid bath planet. Today we have this episode for you. 39 00:01:50.640 --> 00:01:53.719 So it was a recent scorching hot afternoon in La 40 00:01:54.120 --> 00:01:56.439 We hopped on the horn and I thought, man, this 41 00:01:56.560 --> 00:01:59.280 is going to be the easiest thing ever a remote 42 00:01:59.280 --> 00:02:03.239 interview the mic guy no tech challenges here, but alas 43 00:02:03.280 --> 00:02:05.920 for some reason his mic was faltering and was super quiet. 44 00:02:06.159 --> 00:02:09.000 Can you even believe I can't, but Jarrett sprust it 45 00:02:09.080 --> 00:02:11.599 up and post we boosted his sound, so what it's 46 00:02:11.639 --> 00:02:14.840 worth a listen anyway? All the other episodes have better sound. Okay, 47 00:02:14.840 --> 00:02:17.639 real quick, just to thanks to everyone who submitted questions 48 00:02:17.759 --> 00:02:20.759 via patreon dot com slash ologies barrier to entry is 49 00:02:20.840 --> 00:02:23.800 one dollar a month hop aboard. Thanks to everyone who 50 00:02:23.879 --> 00:02:26.280 tells friends about ologies, who leaves a review knowing that 51 00:02:26.319 --> 00:02:28.719 I read them all, such as one that Emily left 52 00:02:28.719 --> 00:02:30.479 a few days ago that read, I gotta say, lady, 53 00:02:30.560 --> 00:02:33.560 I hated science before I listened to your podcast. Now 54 00:02:33.560 --> 00:02:37.240 I can't get enough. Emily welcomed the messy, weird world 55 00:02:37.240 --> 00:02:39.800 of nature. Let's get gross, okay, so let's get on 56 00:02:39.840 --> 00:02:42.240 with it. We cover everything from how noisy the ocean 57 00:02:42.319 --> 00:02:47.680 is capturing sonic evidence of rare animals, who's the loudest 58 00:02:47.800 --> 00:02:51.199 bird and what do they want? How fish apartment hunt, 59 00:02:51.439 --> 00:02:56.080 ghosts and infrasound, how much logging is illegal logging, the 60 00:02:56.120 --> 00:02:58.919 types of jobs out there for sound nerds who like science, 61 00:02:59.039 --> 00:03:01.639 and a weird thing that I have in my backyard 62 00:03:01.879 --> 00:03:29.560 with acoustic ecologist doctor Eddie Game. Hi, is this doctor game? Uh? Okay? 63 00:03:29.680 --> 00:03:32.800 Doctor game sounds like a sounds like a deal. Oh, 64 00:03:32.840 --> 00:03:34.319 and one thing I will have you do at the 65 00:03:34.319 --> 00:03:37.319 start if you could say your first and last name 66 00:03:37.360 --> 00:03:38.759 and your pronouns that you use. 67 00:03:39.159 --> 00:03:40.919 Yeah, eddie, game, Yeah? 68 00:03:41.960 --> 00:03:43.960 And where am I talking to you from? Where are 69 00:03:44.039 --> 00:03:44.960 you beaming in from? 70 00:03:45.280 --> 00:03:47.039 I'm talking for Brisbane, Australia. 71 00:03:47.960 --> 00:03:51.280 Oh, I hope that it is a reasonable time there. 72 00:03:51.520 --> 00:03:53.759 Oh yeah, it's it's quarter past nine in the morning, 73 00:03:53.879 --> 00:03:56.360 so it's halfway through my webday pretty much. 74 00:03:57.919 --> 00:03:59.360 Do you have to get up early early for what 75 00:03:59.400 --> 00:04:00.039 you do? 76 00:04:00.039 --> 00:04:00.479 Do you know what? 77 00:04:00.560 --> 00:04:04.120 I get up early because I am so often connecting 78 00:04:04.120 --> 00:04:05.159 with people in the US. 79 00:04:05.919 --> 00:04:08.319 That's the bulk of our organization is in the US. 80 00:04:08.520 --> 00:04:11.599 And now you've been working with Nature Conservancy, right, how 81 00:04:11.599 --> 00:04:12.360 long have you been with them? 82 00:04:12.879 --> 00:04:18.000 Oh? Goodness, fourteen and a half years. It's a long time. 83 00:04:18.720 --> 00:04:21.759 And I have to ask acoustic ecology. I did not 84 00:04:21.920 --> 00:04:26.560 know that this was an ology, but what areas does 85 00:04:27.199 --> 00:04:30.360 monitoring or listening work in? Like? How do you describe 86 00:04:30.360 --> 00:04:31.920 what acoustic ecology is to people? 87 00:04:32.120 --> 00:04:32.279 Oh? 88 00:04:32.399 --> 00:04:36.079 It's so cool? Do you know? And I don't think 89 00:04:36.199 --> 00:04:38.959 many people knew it was an ology too. 90 00:04:39.360 --> 00:04:41.720 Apparently five or six years ago and really started taking 91 00:04:41.879 --> 00:04:46.040 sort of whiskers of it, and there's some people in California. 92 00:04:45.480 --> 00:04:48.600 It's Goodlin Italy doing it. But now you know. 93 00:04:48.759 --> 00:04:52.199 It's it's sort of exploding such that I think it's 94 00:04:52.199 --> 00:04:55.199 going to be impossible to do even a basic ecology 95 00:04:55.720 --> 00:04:58.720 degree in a few years time without learning something about 96 00:04:58.720 --> 00:05:01.720 acoustic ecology. And so I definitely put it firmly in 97 00:05:01.720 --> 00:05:04.920 that ecology basket. I think of it as one of 98 00:05:04.959 --> 00:05:08.680 the great new streams of data. When we first started 99 00:05:09.439 --> 00:05:14.279 getting satellite images of Earth, it's completely transformational in the 100 00:05:14.360 --> 00:05:17.079 sort of science we could do and the insights we 101 00:05:17.120 --> 00:05:18.879 could get into the planet. 102 00:05:19.079 --> 00:05:22.759 If you're like, was that in nineteen ninety two or 103 00:05:23.319 --> 00:05:27.519 eighteen seventy four, I gotcha. So the first images humans 104 00:05:27.560 --> 00:05:30.160 took from space were by the US in the mid 105 00:05:30.279 --> 00:05:34.120 nineteen forties, so see right after the Second World War. 106 00:05:34.600 --> 00:05:37.800 And it's gotten better since those base blurs. But in 107 00:05:37.879 --> 00:05:40.879 nineteen ninety nine the US and Japan launched a group 108 00:05:40.879 --> 00:05:45.439 project which was public domain images via the Aster Imaging System. 109 00:05:45.600 --> 00:05:48.480 And the point is like a rocket with an instematic 110 00:05:48.560 --> 00:05:51.959 strap to the front of it, things move fast. Is 111 00:05:52.040 --> 00:05:56.480 some of that rise in acoustic ecology because of just 112 00:05:56.519 --> 00:05:58.800 technology getting faster and cheaper. 113 00:05:59.480 --> 00:06:00.759 Yes, definitely cheaper. 114 00:06:01.079 --> 00:06:01.240 You know. 115 00:06:01.240 --> 00:06:05.399 I think that that has been a real game changer 116 00:06:05.480 --> 00:06:08.199 for how the sort of questions you can ask with 117 00:06:08.199 --> 00:06:10.079 acoustic ecology, because it used to be sort of thing 118 00:06:10.160 --> 00:06:12.480 you need to pay thousands, thousands of dollars to get 119 00:06:12.519 --> 00:06:15.879 a decent microphone. And people realize two things. One is 120 00:06:15.879 --> 00:06:17.720 that you can do a lot with cheaper microphones, and 121 00:06:17.800 --> 00:06:21.199 also good quality microphones are getting much cheaper, and companies 122 00:06:21.199 --> 00:06:24.079 started to make good sort of field for purpose things. 123 00:06:24.120 --> 00:06:26.480 And because people were able to put down more microphones 124 00:06:26.639 --> 00:06:29.839 really mean second seat of start asking different questions that 125 00:06:29.959 --> 00:06:32.560 wasn't possible in the part. So yeah, and the processing 126 00:06:32.600 --> 00:06:34.360 I think has changed a bit too, But I don't 127 00:06:34.360 --> 00:06:37.319 think that was ever really that limited. What really happened 128 00:06:37.399 --> 00:06:41.040 was he started having computer scientists being willing to engage 129 00:06:41.040 --> 00:06:43.680 on this as a topic. But once we started getting 130 00:06:43.680 --> 00:06:45.920 the computing science engineers involved, that. 131 00:06:45.920 --> 00:06:46.639 Really helped too. 132 00:06:47.199 --> 00:06:49.600 Just a sad note, So that programming language you mentioned 133 00:06:49.720 --> 00:06:51.879 is called R and I was not familiar with it 134 00:06:51.920 --> 00:06:53.959 and I went to google it and it's just it's 135 00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:56.839 like an app that left out all the vowels and 136 00:06:57.120 --> 00:07:00.000 most of the consonants. It's just r but it says 137 00:07:00.040 --> 00:07:04.920 it's an integrated suite of software facilities for data manipulation, calculation, 138 00:07:05.160 --> 00:07:08.480 and graphical display. And it's free. That's the important part. 139 00:07:08.519 --> 00:07:10.879 Anyone can use it to go get it, you dirty 140 00:07:10.959 --> 00:07:14.560 little nerds. And what about you? Were you an ecollogists 141 00:07:14.600 --> 00:07:18.399 first who learned to us acoustic equipment or did you 142 00:07:18.480 --> 00:07:22.519 always have an ear for music and sound and kind 143 00:07:22.519 --> 00:07:23.480 of blended them together. 144 00:07:23.800 --> 00:07:26.600 No, definitely, definitely the ecologistry. 145 00:07:26.600 --> 00:07:30.000 I was a marine ecologist originally marine violentist and lived 146 00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:32.519 in fisheries and then came did all sorts of things 147 00:07:32.519 --> 00:07:33.319 at the Nature. 148 00:07:33.040 --> 00:07:36.040 Conserve and see and I was editor of a journal. 149 00:07:35.800 --> 00:07:39.120 And I started seeing manuscripts and research coming out a 150 00:07:39.120 --> 00:07:43.160 little bits of it on acoustic ecology, and I realized quietly, 151 00:07:43.279 --> 00:07:45.879 I was like, Wow, this could help solve a problem 152 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:48.839 we have, particularly in Papu, New Guinea, for. 153 00:07:49.199 --> 00:07:50.600 Surveying in these rainforests. 154 00:07:50.600 --> 00:07:53.399 But it's really hard for people to know what's happening 155 00:07:53.439 --> 00:07:55.639 there because it's hard to find experts to know what 156 00:07:55.680 --> 00:07:57.920 they're talking about. Me that a lot of about traditional survey 157 00:07:57.920 --> 00:08:00.480 emit this wouldn't work, And so that's what God interested 158 00:08:00.480 --> 00:08:02.839 in it. But I don't have much of an affinity 159 00:08:02.920 --> 00:08:05.600 for sound. Actually, I was a terrible musician as a child. 160 00:08:05.680 --> 00:08:08.079 I love listening to music, but I think my passion 161 00:08:08.160 --> 00:08:12.199 for listening to music actually damaged my hearing. I spent 162 00:08:12.279 --> 00:08:16.160 so long, it's every university days at concerts, and I'm sure, 163 00:08:16.319 --> 00:08:19.360 I'm sure there's no value of me buying an expensive 164 00:08:20.120 --> 00:08:24.680 stereo anymore. It's not through any kind of musicality of 165 00:08:24.720 --> 00:08:26.240 my own that I got involved in. 166 00:08:26.720 --> 00:08:28.920 You mentioned that you were a marine scientist too, like 167 00:08:29.079 --> 00:08:35.720 does acoustic ecology work obviously terrestrial and oceanic applications, But 168 00:08:35.960 --> 00:08:38.720 how different it is the equipment. 169 00:08:39.080 --> 00:08:40.440 Oh good Christ, really different. 170 00:08:40.440 --> 00:08:44.919 But the marine side of things actually was where acoustic 171 00:08:44.960 --> 00:08:49.519 ecology recided for many years. Acoustic ecology people associated for 172 00:08:49.600 --> 00:08:53.799 me in decades, even with listening to whales and dolphins, 173 00:08:54.279 --> 00:08:57.159 principally because that was a really good way to survey them. 174 00:08:57.240 --> 00:08:57.879 Put down these. 175 00:08:57.840 --> 00:09:02.559 Hydrophones, just a quick one. So a hydrophone is specifically 176 00:09:02.559 --> 00:09:06.399 designed to pick up underwater noise because sound travels four 177 00:09:06.440 --> 00:09:10.200 point three times faster in water than it doesn't air, 178 00:09:10.440 --> 00:09:12.399 and the pressure of a sound wave in water is 179 00:09:12.440 --> 00:09:16.919 sixty times that of air. What So like your fin footed, 180 00:09:17.279 --> 00:09:21.399 gill faced ancestors, the field of acoustic ecology kind of 181 00:09:21.480 --> 00:09:25.000 rose from these watery depths and then flopped itself onto 182 00:09:25.120 --> 00:09:27.480 land sound also as. 183 00:09:27.360 --> 00:09:31.600 It started to really expand in the sort of terrestrial 184 00:09:31.639 --> 00:09:34.639 of the land space. So when there went back to 185 00:09:34.279 --> 00:09:37.559 the freshwater and marine space into side're thinking, you know, 186 00:09:38.519 --> 00:09:43.240 the way that people are applying sound in the forests 187 00:09:43.279 --> 00:09:46.159 and woodlands and things like that, I wonder if we 188 00:09:46.159 --> 00:09:48.399 could do the same in the marine space. Thinking instead 189 00:09:48.399 --> 00:09:51.720 of about just looking for signatures of individual animals, could 190 00:09:51.720 --> 00:09:54.399 we tell something about all the overall sound that's. 191 00:09:54.240 --> 00:09:57.080 Happening and things are really seemed really promising. 192 00:09:57.519 --> 00:10:00.960 And you mentioned something about the signatures of of animals. 193 00:10:01.320 --> 00:10:04.960 What kinds of noises are you listening for? I mean, 194 00:10:04.960 --> 00:10:06.919 I know that we're all thinking like bird calls, yeah, 195 00:10:07.159 --> 00:10:10.919 maybe some bats high frequency, but like, what how do 196 00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:13.879 you how do you even figure out in a sound 197 00:10:13.879 --> 00:10:15.080 file who's singing? 198 00:10:15.159 --> 00:10:16.600 What? Oh, that's a great question. 199 00:10:17.039 --> 00:10:19.159 So this, first of all, there's lots of different animals 200 00:10:19.200 --> 00:10:22.759 that vocalize the biggest group of animals that you hear 201 00:10:22.840 --> 00:10:26.840 vocalizing when you make any recording it insects. Insects, insects 202 00:10:26.879 --> 00:10:29.399 vocalized at all sorts of different frequencies at all kinds 203 00:10:29.440 --> 00:10:31.720 of times of day, and that's something we can begin 204 00:10:31.759 --> 00:10:34.720 to done. Sometimes they're really sort of characteristic. Sometimes they're 205 00:10:34.759 --> 00:10:39.039 completely unknown. But then you also have amphibians from obviously 206 00:10:39.519 --> 00:10:43.480 mammals birds, that's it, because that's another good thing to mention, 207 00:10:43.559 --> 00:10:46.320 because bats were also one of those animals that people 208 00:10:46.440 --> 00:10:51.519 had continued to use acoustic ecology to survey just because 209 00:10:51.600 --> 00:10:54.159 I have the seabouts but actually had to hear them. 210 00:10:54.159 --> 00:10:56.679 But if you put out these sort of ultrasonic recorders 211 00:10:56.840 --> 00:10:59.440 that record a very high frequentlee, so you can you 212 00:10:59.480 --> 00:11:03.159 can hear, and there's a bit of separation between a 213 00:11:03.159 --> 00:11:04.519 lot of work on bats and a lot of the 214 00:11:04.559 --> 00:11:05.960 other things we hear in recordings. 215 00:11:06.000 --> 00:11:07.600 So if you have a microphone that's really good. 216 00:11:07.519 --> 00:11:13.080 For hearing that, it's not so good for capturing differences 217 00:11:13.120 --> 00:11:15.840 between most of the sounds that you and I hear 218 00:11:15.879 --> 00:11:17.120 with our ears. 219 00:11:17.240 --> 00:11:20.320 So human beings that's us can hear in the range 220 00:11:20.320 --> 00:11:24.080 of twenty hurts to twenty killer hurts, and bats are 221 00:11:24.159 --> 00:11:26.519 up there just cute in their little quts in the 222 00:11:26.639 --> 00:11:30.240 range of twelve killer hurts to one hundred and sixty 223 00:11:30.320 --> 00:11:32.919 killer hertz, that is one hundred and forty killer herds 224 00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:36.879 above our range of hearing. Their conversations go right over 225 00:11:36.919 --> 00:11:39.879 our heads in so many ways, which is why recordings 226 00:11:39.879 --> 00:11:45.480 of bat noises are usually dumb, so our ape, ears 227 00:11:45.480 --> 00:11:48.120 and brains can hear it. Do you want to hear 228 00:11:48.120 --> 00:11:52.480 something else? Can I tell you a secret? I have 229 00:11:53.519 --> 00:11:57.919 a bat microphone in my backyard. I was recently selected 230 00:11:57.960 --> 00:12:00.320 two months ago to have a bat survey from the 231 00:12:00.399 --> 00:12:06.200 natural in my yard, and fifteen minutes before this call, 232 00:12:06.679 --> 00:12:10.399 Miguel or Nana, who runs the survey, was coming and checking. 233 00:12:10.679 --> 00:12:13.279 We just got the survey back from last month. We 234 00:12:13.360 --> 00:12:17.240 have like three bats in our yard, three species that 235 00:12:17.320 --> 00:12:20.799 it's not like three individual bats who just hang out. 236 00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:23.240 They were looking for people, and I emailed them within 237 00:12:23.240 --> 00:12:26.559 a millisecond, please my backyard, please my guard. So they 238 00:12:26.679 --> 00:12:30.480 installed this tiny microphone and they come once a month 239 00:12:30.519 --> 00:12:33.919 to come and take the sound cards. And this makes 240 00:12:33.960 --> 00:12:35.720 me feel a lot better because there are so many 241 00:12:35.759 --> 00:12:38.159 times where I've been talking to my dog in a 242 00:12:38.159 --> 00:12:42.240 baby voice very high frequency, or singing to plants, being 243 00:12:42.279 --> 00:12:44.639 like can they pick this up? So they can't pick 244 00:12:44.679 --> 00:12:46.639 that up? Is what you're saying no. 245 00:12:46.200 --> 00:12:49.759 Not usually, so I mean you could, you might. 246 00:12:50.559 --> 00:12:53.960 The problem is that the frequency of their calls is 247 00:12:54.000 --> 00:12:55.559 so fast you have to have a microphone that can 248 00:12:55.799 --> 00:12:59.559 quite credibly fast to be able to capture that. And 249 00:12:59.600 --> 00:13:02.919 that means the sort of longer, slower sound ways and 250 00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:04.519 lower frequencies just tend. 251 00:13:04.320 --> 00:13:06.240 To get a bit blurry in there. 252 00:13:06.360 --> 00:13:09.679 Okay, so it's not really good for distinguishing between different 253 00:13:09.679 --> 00:13:11.360 frequencies for the lower in the ring. 254 00:13:11.759 --> 00:13:13.679 That makes me feel so much better. I mean, I 255 00:13:14.360 --> 00:13:17.200 was so excited because we already had an interview on 256 00:13:17.320 --> 00:13:19.759 the books I feel like for a while, and then 257 00:13:19.919 --> 00:13:22.000 this came up that we got selected to have about survey. 258 00:13:22.080 --> 00:13:25.120 So I was like, this is perfect, but can you 259 00:13:25.159 --> 00:13:29.360 tell me a little bit about what animals occupy what frequencies? 260 00:13:30.200 --> 00:13:32.320 I feel like it's got to just be all over 261 00:13:32.320 --> 00:13:32.720 the map. 262 00:13:33.639 --> 00:13:35.240 It is all lower than that, so you know, so 263 00:13:36.240 --> 00:13:40.080 where I guess most of the frequencies that we're listening to, 264 00:13:40.159 --> 00:13:44.399 like human hearing, can hear the best case scenario from 265 00:13:44.600 --> 00:13:49.600 twenty hurts up to twenty killer hurts, and that's actually 266 00:13:49.639 --> 00:13:53.000 the range that most animals vocalizing have. The very very 267 00:13:53.080 --> 00:13:55.200 kind of low end of that range, you. 268 00:13:55.240 --> 00:13:58.679 Do get some some amphibians down there, quite like called 269 00:13:58.679 --> 00:14:01.120 some mammals in and there are some birds in the 270 00:14:01.320 --> 00:14:03.720 jungles of how the new gin you have these amazing 271 00:14:03.720 --> 00:14:04.879 birds called cassiaries. 272 00:14:05.679 --> 00:14:11.120 Yeah, yeah, kind of big prehistoric things for a little 273 00:14:11.120 --> 00:14:15.159 bit like dinosaurs, but they they vocalize very very low frequency, 274 00:14:15.279 --> 00:14:18.120 so sometimes hard to pick out those calls even on 275 00:14:18.159 --> 00:14:18.960 our microphones. 276 00:14:19.240 --> 00:14:22.159 As you move up a little bit, you get into 277 00:14:22.200 --> 00:14:24.200 sort of the I guess the frequencies that we hear 278 00:14:24.240 --> 00:14:27.720 the best at in those you know, around three killer herds, 279 00:14:28.279 --> 00:14:31.200 and that's that's really have a lot of birds in 280 00:14:31.279 --> 00:14:33.440 that space in jungles. 281 00:14:33.000 --> 00:14:34.120 Like those in Borneo. 282 00:14:34.240 --> 00:14:42.360 You get primates in that kind of space too, And 283 00:14:42.440 --> 00:14:45.159 then as you go up higher you can get birds 284 00:14:45.159 --> 00:14:47.320 out slightly higher frequencies, but you certainly get lot of 285 00:14:47.399 --> 00:14:50.200 insects at higher frequencies. There is even lots of insects 286 00:14:50.799 --> 00:14:53.840 vocalizing up ten killer hurtsten killers even up. 287 00:14:53.799 --> 00:14:59.159 To twenty Okay, but what does ten killer hurts fifteen killer? 288 00:15:01.120 --> 00:15:08.440 They're twenty killer hurts sound like? Also if you were like, oh, 289 00:15:08.519 --> 00:15:12.559 how embarrassing you messed up and some sound effects were missing. Congratulations, 290 00:15:12.840 --> 00:15:15.159 you're me. As Jarret and I were editing this, I 291 00:15:15.240 --> 00:15:16.879 kept telling him that the fifteen and the twenty killer 292 00:15:16.879 --> 00:15:19.360 herd sound effects were missing, and that's when I read 293 00:15:19.519 --> 00:15:22.759 his face and I learned that any sound above eleven 294 00:15:22.840 --> 00:15:26.600 killer hurts means nothing to my ears. They're gone. So 295 00:15:26.799 --> 00:15:31.080 thanks past me for attending warehouse parties in two thousand 296 00:15:31.120 --> 00:15:34.360 and seven with shitty djays. Let's not do that again. 297 00:15:34.720 --> 00:15:37.840 What are some of the questions that you're trying to 298 00:15:37.879 --> 00:15:39.799 answer other than what is out there? 299 00:15:41.200 --> 00:15:43.159 Yeah, so you know, one of the ways that we 300 00:15:43.399 --> 00:15:46.960 use sound is actually. 301 00:15:46.639 --> 00:15:50.200 Kind of not even to ask cook who's there or 302 00:15:50.799 --> 00:15:53.759 who's making the stamp. But what is all of the 303 00:15:53.799 --> 00:15:57.480 sound telling us about the health of the environment. 304 00:15:58.320 --> 00:16:01.519 That we're learning is that in a really. 305 00:16:01.320 --> 00:16:05.679 Healthy, sort of intact environment, most of the acoustic space, 306 00:16:05.759 --> 00:16:10.639 if you like, gets filled up. And competing ideas about 307 00:16:10.639 --> 00:16:12.799 why that might be the case, but one of the 308 00:16:12.879 --> 00:16:15.200 key ones is this idea of something called the acoustic 309 00:16:15.279 --> 00:16:20.600 Niche hypothesis, which is that there's sort of acoustic space partitioning. 310 00:16:20.720 --> 00:16:22.440 So because we all want to be heard, all the 311 00:16:22.519 --> 00:16:25.039 animals in the forest will we heard over each other. 312 00:16:25.519 --> 00:16:28.360 They adapt their hearing to a particular frequency, and they 313 00:16:28.360 --> 00:16:32.600 adapt their speech to a particular frequency. And as a 314 00:16:32.639 --> 00:16:36.519 result of evolution of that intact environment means that most 315 00:16:36.559 --> 00:16:39.080 of the frequencies get kind of filled up. 316 00:16:39.120 --> 00:16:40.840 So you have a look you to think or recording 317 00:16:40.840 --> 00:16:41.320 and see. 318 00:16:41.159 --> 00:16:44.159 How many frequencies are full, how many of those spaces 319 00:16:44.159 --> 00:16:47.679 are occupied, indication of how healthy it is, and that 320 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:50.679 what we are seeing really clearly in our data. And 321 00:16:50.720 --> 00:16:55.080 this gets to how we use it is as environments 322 00:16:55.159 --> 00:16:58.720 get degraded as we use them, we start seeing gaps 323 00:16:58.759 --> 00:17:01.399 open up in that acoustic spe You can sort of 324 00:17:01.440 --> 00:17:03.600 measure how many gaps there are and use that as 325 00:17:03.639 --> 00:17:07.599 an indication of how intact the forest is and how 326 00:17:07.640 --> 00:17:10.640 healthy it is, and that lets us ask questions like, Okay, 327 00:17:11.720 --> 00:17:13.519 the way we're currently using this sort of say, the 328 00:17:13.559 --> 00:17:17.599 way we're chopping trees, the way we're harvesting, how does 329 00:17:17.640 --> 00:17:21.119 that affect this particular forest or is this area that 330 00:17:21.160 --> 00:17:24.279 we have set aside as a protected area, a national 331 00:17:24.319 --> 00:17:27.279 park or something like that, is that big enough? Is 332 00:17:27.279 --> 00:17:31.400 that sustaining biodiversity or is there something else going on? 333 00:17:32.200 --> 00:17:37.359 And that ability to associate sound, the saturation of the 334 00:17:37.400 --> 00:17:40.799 sound with environmental health means you can apply to all 335 00:17:40.839 --> 00:17:43.319 sorts of questions that are really useful for a conservation 336 00:17:43.440 --> 00:17:45.279 organization like the nature conservancy. 337 00:17:45.480 --> 00:17:48.200 So imagine Waki Taki. There has a bunch of different 338 00:17:48.279 --> 00:17:52.759 channels and different organisms evolved to occupy those different channels, 339 00:17:52.960 --> 00:17:56.079 and when acoustic at colleges run the data and suddenly 340 00:17:56.160 --> 00:18:03.119 start to find in those frequency niches, that's a pretty 341 00:18:03.119 --> 00:18:06.559 big loud alarm bell that something's missing. So that's so cool. 342 00:18:06.640 --> 00:18:09.720 So you can look at it, say we're missing a 343 00:18:09.759 --> 00:18:12.640 lot of noises in this area, in this area that 344 00:18:12.720 --> 00:18:15.839 probably belongs to these type of insects or these kind 345 00:18:15.839 --> 00:18:19.599 of migratory birds. And then where do you go from there? 346 00:18:20.640 --> 00:18:23.799 Yeah, good questions where we started this for us? 347 00:18:23.880 --> 00:18:27.319 The secritic generals in Papua New Guinea and U Guina 348 00:18:27.400 --> 00:18:28.960 is a kind of fascinating place. 349 00:18:28.720 --> 00:18:32.480 Because the land is all owned. 350 00:18:32.279 --> 00:18:35.200 Under something called customary tenure, so the communities that live 351 00:18:35.200 --> 00:18:38.079 there essentially have control over their land. But it also 352 00:18:38.160 --> 00:18:41.119 means that they just they had this one area that 353 00:18:41.160 --> 00:18:43.240 they get to work in, and it's very hard to 354 00:18:43.319 --> 00:18:45.759 kind of combine and aggregate those so you don't have 355 00:18:45.880 --> 00:18:49.720 these quite vast forest tracts of national parks. You go 356 00:18:49.799 --> 00:18:51.960 out of forests, but it's divided into lots of different 357 00:18:51.960 --> 00:18:55.480 people's ownership, and that puts kind of a maximum size 358 00:18:55.720 --> 00:18:59.319 on how much area you could set aside for conservation, 359 00:18:59.440 --> 00:19:02.079 especially as people need to have areas also and grow 360 00:19:02.240 --> 00:19:05.640 enough food to live, harvest enough trees to build their houses, 361 00:19:06.279 --> 00:19:09.839 and growing population as well. So what we needed to 362 00:19:10.039 --> 00:19:13.839 know was whether if every community sets aside just a 363 00:19:13.880 --> 00:19:16.759 little piece of their forest, is that going to be 364 00:19:16.920 --> 00:19:20.200 enough to retain all the amazing species that live in 365 00:19:20.240 --> 00:19:22.519 these forests, these jungles of New Guinea. 366 00:19:22.640 --> 00:19:24.240 And so what we can do is go. 367 00:19:24.119 --> 00:19:27.119 And look at the patches of forests and record sounds, 368 00:19:27.119 --> 00:19:29.559 and record the sounds in different kinds of forests. 369 00:19:29.240 --> 00:19:30.480 And compare them. 370 00:19:30.720 --> 00:19:31.960 So what did they find? 371 00:19:32.400 --> 00:19:36.359 Actually, we don't see many things missing from forest, but 372 00:19:36.359 --> 00:19:39.359 as soon as we start chipping into them to plant 373 00:19:39.359 --> 00:19:42.599 a garden or remove some of the canopy, then we 374 00:19:42.640 --> 00:19:46.400 see that loss and we can measure that and continue 375 00:19:46.400 --> 00:19:47.119 to kind of track that. 376 00:19:47.440 --> 00:19:52.519 What about other types of acoustic monitoring, like for poaching, 377 00:19:52.880 --> 00:19:57.920 is that used in a completely different way than speeches monitoring. 378 00:19:58.240 --> 00:19:59.079 Yeah, that's a good question. 379 00:19:59.119 --> 00:20:01.480 So I guess a a few things that have been 380 00:20:01.519 --> 00:20:05.279 tried in different places. It's a little different because one 381 00:20:05.279 --> 00:20:07.839 of the things that was explored a lot with respect 382 00:20:07.880 --> 00:20:10.400 as poaching is whether you can hear things like gun 383 00:20:10.480 --> 00:20:15.519 shots or sort of legal harvest bulldos and chainsaws, things 384 00:20:15.519 --> 00:20:20.000 like that, and they're very distinctive sounds on recordings, partly 385 00:20:20.039 --> 00:20:22.240 because they're also very low frequencies sound. A lot of 386 00:20:22.279 --> 00:20:25.440 sounds that people make tend to be low frequencies, which 387 00:20:25.440 --> 00:20:27.559 also means they tend to travel a long way, so 388 00:20:27.640 --> 00:20:30.440 you can hear them from a long way away. So 389 00:20:30.519 --> 00:20:33.039 microphones are quite good at picking up those kinds of things. 390 00:20:33.440 --> 00:20:36.559 What's tricky is setting a system in place that would 391 00:20:36.599 --> 00:20:39.759 allow you to go and respond effectively to that sort 392 00:20:39.759 --> 00:20:41.160 of you know, be able to pick up a sound 393 00:20:41.680 --> 00:20:43.359 to go and respond in real time. 394 00:20:43.599 --> 00:20:44.799 That's tricky, especially so. 395 00:20:44.839 --> 00:20:48.880 Many places where this is happening I don't have reliable 396 00:20:48.920 --> 00:20:52.400 network connection. So sort of an ideal situation, you could 397 00:20:52.400 --> 00:20:54.599 set up a microphone that was sending a signal back 398 00:20:54.640 --> 00:20:57.720 and someone would go out immediately see how there's a gunshots, 399 00:20:58.400 --> 00:21:01.799 And that can happen in a few exceptional circumstances, but 400 00:21:02.240 --> 00:21:05.400 in general that's tough to do, especially also at these 401 00:21:05.480 --> 00:21:08.559