After a pile of coding, and some deep generosity from World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Chris Clark’s lab at Cornell, and the Macaulay Library we are finally launching our Arctic Soundscapes feature on the “Don’t be a Buckethead” website. We launched…
Homing pigeons “hear where they are”
It has been long known that homing pigeons and probably many other migratory birds can hear “infrasound” – sounds at frequencies below human ability to discriminate as pitch. Our pitch discrimination ends at around 20Hz, below which we perceive continuous…
Noise Awareness Day gets wet
Today, April 25 2013 is “International Noise Awareness Day.” Founded in 1996 by the Center for Hearing and Communication it was designed to promote awareness of the dangers of long-term exposure to noise – in humans. 1996 was really just…
Whale Call Map
An Earth Day to Remember
Back in April 1970 – in the midst of the political, societal, and environmental reevaluation of our national priorities called “The 60’s” Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-WI) thought it would be a good idea to pause for a moment and honor…
International Women’s Day
I always find it a little ironic when by decree we ask ourselves to pay just a little more attention and honor some fundamental aspect of our species on just one day of the year. National Bioacoustician’ s Day makes…
Seismic Surveys and Whale Strandings
In the last couple of weeks evidence has come forth associating seismic airgun surveys with catastrophic strandings of marine mammals. The Falkland Islands are the site of two mass strandings of pilot whales, one in March 2011 of 400 whales,…
Dolphin Speak
A paper recently published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society on dolphin communication got some public attention in Science last week because the studies inferred that dolphins could learn names of individuals in their social group and use these…
What can animals hear?
While catastrophic whale strandings first brought the public’s attention to the ocean noise impacts, a greater noise concern is the impact of the ever increasing “acoustic smog” from human noise sources. This problem is called “masking” – what happens when…