Please check out the new article about the Australian Acoustic Observatory in the August 2021 edition of AudioWings, the journal for the Australian Wildlife Sound Recording Group. Many thanks to Dr Sue Gould.
The A2O, in partnership with ABC Science and the University of New England, have developed Hoot Detective for National Science Week 2021. Hoot Detective is a digital citizen science project where participants can identify owl species, as well as other audible organisms, from across Australia. Anna Salleh’s article Listening to the planet: Understanding the science of ecoacoustics provides more information about the project. To start finding owls and other critters that call in the night, follow the link to Hoot Detective now, and happy listening!
It’s been a long time between posts, and there have been many exciting developments for the Australian Acoustic Observatory over the intervening period. A large number of sites have been added to the A2O network, ranging from the far north to Tasmania, and the arid interior to coastal locations. Many recordings are now processed and are being made accessible through the A2O data portal.
A2O infrastructure is now hosted by the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane. The move to QUT has been an involved process, and we aim to minimise any further delays related to the new arrangement. Thank you to everyone for your patience, and please check in regularly with the observatory for future developments.
The observatory has also had a paper published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution. The paper can be accessed here. Please reference this paper if you plan to use A2O data in any publications or projects.
Thanks again for your support and enthusiasm for the Australian Acoustic Observatory! Keep an eye out for more news here and keep in touch with the A2O team if you have any comments or questions.
The Australian Acoustic Observatory, recording a ‘galaxy of sounds’ across multiple ecosystems, was featured on ABC News today. Follow the story here and learn more about this world-first project.
We need your help to search for night fauna at QUT’s Samford Ecological Research Facility.
By finding as many vocalisations of Powerful Owls, Southern Boobooks and Bush-stone Curlews as you can, you will not only help give a better understanding of the presence of these wonderful animals at Samford, but you will also contribute valuable data that will help us build powerful tools to make the task of conducting acoustic ecological surveys easier.
Visit https://data.acousticobservatory.org/citsci/night-birds/ to get started!
‘Listening to Nature: The Emerging Field of Bioacoustics’ is a recent story written by Adam Welz for Yale Environment 360 exploring the growing use of acoustic technologies in ecological research. The Australian Acoustic Observatory gets a special mention, as does Professor Dave Watson, one the observatory’s Chief Investigator Managers.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.