Listen

When you look at the pictures in this post, try to hear hundreds of seagulls calling to each other, a bald eagle in a nearby tree twittering to his mate, and an otter cracking clams on his stomach. In China Poot Bay, there is never silence. There is far too much life to create a quiet world.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a soundscape worth? New research by Bryan Pijanowski of Purdue University and his associates is looking at how ecosystem health can be determined by the sounds that you hear in a given place. This research not only looks at what you can hear, but what you no longer hear that should be there.

The world we live in is so dominated by human sound. We become so accustomed to the buzz in the background, that we don’t notice it’s there until we go to a place where that buzz no longer dominates. In those few places in the world where human sounds are the exception rather than the rule, I believe we can truly listen to ourselves. If we listen for what’s there as well as what’s not, we may even be able to hear how we can begin the heal the ecosystems we have impacted.