Scientists are listening to hours of forest soundscapes to help them better understand their unique ecosystems. Eco-acoustics is harnessing the power of AI to capture the fingerprint of WA southwest forests.
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00:00 Lauren Hawkins is listening to this area of Jarrah Forest near Mundaring in the Perth
00:08 Hills.
00:09 I want to find out what is making the sounds and then learning how this information, how
00:18 we can use that to make sure that we're conserving and managing these forests into the future.
00:25 Out in the bush, Ms Hawkins sets up small recording devices.
00:29 These wonderful nifty little devices here, very, very small.
00:34 They get set up, can be put up in a tree or on a picket, on a dropper, and they record
00:40 the sound waves of whatever is making sound in the environment.
00:47 Over time, the recordings will allow scientists to monitor the health of an ecosystem by monitoring
00:53 what native species are present and also what invasive species are active in an area.
00:58 This way of using eco-acoustics is a relatively new field of science.
01:03 It has great potential for application because it's cost effective, it's non-invasive, it
01:10 can be, you can put it into remote places, they can be out for a long period of time
01:17 and can collect very high resolution data.
01:21 Back in the office, scientists have hundreds of hours of data to analyse.
01:25 But with the introduction of AI, that job is becoming easier.
01:29 We're still in the journey of this tool being developed to be applied to mainstream monitoring
01:34 practices but we're on our way and it's really exciting to be a part of.
01:39 The project is expanding to capture soundscapes from bushland throughout the south-west of
01:43 the state.
01:45 It's an absolute privilege to be able to walk in nature and have that connection of closing
01:52 your eyes and listening.
01:56 [BLANK_AUDIO]