WORLD’S LARGEST NATURAL SOUND LIBRARY NOW ONLINE

Add caption

The Macaulay Library, with over 150,000 recordings of 9,000 species is now digitised and has been uploaded to an online searchable database.

The library, housed at Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology, has made available over ten terabytes of recordings, with a runtime of 7513 hours of natural sounds.

The collection, which began in 1929 has taken researchers dozens of years to accumulate. It currently holds recordings to a massive three-quarters of the world’s entire bird species, but it’s not all chirps and squawks, there’s also a decent helping of whale songs, insects, bears, elephants, primates and just about every other critter or creepy crawley that roams the earth.

The collection’s curator Greg Budney describes the archives as revolutionary, in terms of the speed and the breadth of material that is now accessible online.

“This is one of the greatest research and conservation resources at the Cornell Lab,” said Budney. “And through its digitization we’ve swung the doors open on it in a way that wasn’t possible 10 or 20 years ago.”

“Our audio collection is the largest and the oldest in the world,” explained Macaulay Library director Mike Webster. “Now, it’s also the most accessible. We’re working to improve search functions and create tools people can use to collect recordings and upload them directly to the archive. Our goal is to make the Macaulay Library as useful as possible for the broadest audience possible.”

Now the team has digitised its massive archive, it’s focusing on collecting new material from amateur and professional recordists from around the world.

The sounds are not only used by sound designers and filmmakers, but also by researchers, museums, or anyone interested in the sounds of nature.

“Plus, it’s just plain fun to listen to these sounds,” explained Bundy. “Have you heard the sound of a walrus underwater? It’s an amazing sound.” 

*UPDATE*

We had previously stated the library was free to use, but that seems not to be the case – rather, it’s ‘free to listen’. Licensing for commercial and non-commercial use is available, however it requires submitting an online purchase order, which may have fees associated with it (in other words, not free).

You can access the library now at macaulaylibrary.org.

Sound Recordists Chris Watson (image: lists/uk)

Check out some of the fun sounds found at the library:

• Earliest recording: Cornell Lab founder Arthur Allen was a pioneer in sound recording. On a spring day in 1929 he recorded this Song Sparrow sounding much as they do today.
• Best candidate to appear on a John Coltrane record: The indri, a lemur with a voice that is part moan, part jazz clarinet
• Most spines tingled: The incomparable voice of a Common Loon on an Adirondacks lake in 1992
• Most erratic construction project: the staccato hammering sounds of a walrus under water
• Most likely to be mistaken for aliens arriving: Birds-of-paradise make some amazing sounds – here’s the UFO-sound of a Curl-crested Manucode in New Guinea

ORIGINAL: Video and Film Maker

Arctic Foxes 'Grow' Their Own Gardens

An Arctic fox appears at the entrance of its den in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. 
PHOTOGRAPH BY DANIEL J. COX

The little carnivores' colorful dens provide veritable oases in the tundra, a new study says.

BARROW, ALASKA The underground homes, often a century old, are topped with gardens exploding with lush dune grass, diamond leaf willows, and yellow wildflowers—a flash of color in an otherwise gray landscape.

“They’re bright green and everything around them is just brown,” says Brian Person, a wildlife biologist for the North Slope Borough in Barrow, Alaska. “It pops.”

He’s talking about arctic fox dens.

Person has spent the better part of a decade studying the wide-ranging carnivores' movements throughout northern Alaska. The 6-to-12-pound (3-to-5-kilogram) foxes, which prey mostly on lemmings and small game, are found throughout the circumpolar Arctic, from Alaska and Canada all the way into Europe and Greenland.

The little carnivores' colorful dens provide veritable oases in the tundra, a new study says.

He's tracked satellite-collared foxes that have traveled as far east as the Chukchi Sea (map) before doubling back and hopping sea ice until they’ve skirted the coast of neighboring Siberia.

But arctic foxes move too quickly to follow in real time, and Person only receives their GPS location every three days. That makes the colorful fox dwellings the key to better monitoring the population—and how they fit into the Arctic environment.

Peering down from a fixed-wing aircraft, the splashes of green “allow me to estimate just how many dens are out there," he says.

“These animals are fertilizing and basically growing a garden."

Gardens that create such a stark contrast on the tundra that scientists who recently published the first scientific study on the dens have dubbed the foxes "ecosystem engineers."

Conducted in 2014 near Churchill, Manitoba, the experiments revealed that the foxes' organic waste supports almost three times as much botanical biomass in summer months as the rest of the tundra.

How a Fox Garden Grows
During the long, dark Arctic winter, the tundra fades into an opaque world where sky and ground blend into a never-ending haze.

With temperatures that dip into the double-digit negatives, the only place for the foxes to take shelter and protect young from the elements—and other predators—is deep underground. (Read "Seasons of the Snow Fox" in National Geographic magazine.)

Some dens are over a century old, and the best are elevated: ridges, mounds, riverbanks. But with so much permafrost—frozen ground—and such a flat environment, prime sites can take years to develop.

And since digging new homes wastes valuable energy, real estate is limited—so foxes reuse locations—and in a strange time-share, foxes sometimes steal sites belonging to ground squirrels.

Photographer Captures Stunning Arctic Wildlife Spotlighting foxes, wolves, hares, owls, and even a polar bear, these photographs capture the beauty of the Arctic.

With litters averaging about eight to 10 pups—some as high as 16—the foxes deposit high amounts of nutrients in and around their dens, a combination of urination, defecation, and leftover kills.

In winter, foxes don’t drink water or eat snow or ice, which lowers their core temperature. Instead they get water from their food, which concentrates nutrients in their urine, making it more potent.

Tundra Oases

These tundra oases are beyond just being postcard beautiful: They boost the Arctic environment.

And that means more food options in a place without many, says Jim Roth of the University of Manitoba, a co-author on the recent study.

Greater plant diversity gives herbivores a spot to forage during short summers, he explains. (See National Geographic photos of Arctic animals.)

“Lots of other species visit these dens,” adds Roth, who has been studying arctic foxes since 1994. “Caribou and other herbivores are attracted to the lush vegetation, and scavengers come looking for goose carcasses.”

Winter Wonder

Arctic fox gardens occur throughout the Arctic, says Person, who isn’t shy about his respect for the animal and its abilities.

In times of plenty, the canids can cache as many as 104 snow goose eggs a day, another unsung nutritional boost to the land—and opportunistic scavengers. ("Watch Polar Bears Eat Goose Eggs in Warmer Arctic.")

With short ears and snout—which requires less energy to heat—as well as a heavily insulated coat, the species is perfectly adapted to winter, Person says. So well, in fact, that scientists have been unable to get the animals to shiver in laboratory chambers—even when they drop temperatures to -40ºC.

"They’re incredibly efficient. I’ve seen them running and it’s almost like they’re not touching the ground.”

Polar bears may get more attention as the Arctic’s top predator, but an animal a fraction of their size might in fact be pound-for-pound the more impressive beast.

ORIGINAL: National Geographic
By Adam Popescu
MAY 20, 2016

Conservation.org's video series "Nature is Speaking"

CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL PRESENTS "NATURE IS SPEAKING"

STARRING

• LEE PACE as MOUNTAIN
• REESE WITHERSPOON as HOME
• LIAM NEESON as ICE
• JULIA ROBERTS as MOTHER NATURE
• HARRISON FORD as THE OCEAN
• KEVIN SPACEY as THE RAIN FOREST
• EDWARD NORTON as SOIL
• PENELOPE CRUZ as WATER
• ROBERT REDFORD as THE REDWOOD
• IAN SOMERHALDER as CORAL REEF
• LUPITA NYONG´O as FLOWER

ORIGINAL: Conservation.org

Cómo los lobos son capaces de cambiar el curso del río

Cuando los lobos fueron reintroducidos en el parque nacional de Yellowstone en los Estados Unidos después de haber estado ausentes casi 70 años, ocurrió una "cascada trófica". ¿Qué es una cascada trófica? ¿Cómo pueden transformar los lobos el curso de un río? George Monbiot te lo explica en este video (traducido).

La recuperación de la población de lobos en el Parque Nacional de Yellowstone, en Estados Unidos, ha favorecido a todo el ecosistema. Se demuestra así la importancia de cualquier ser vivo en la naturaleza, desde los máximos depredadores hasta los más pequeños insectos. Hay que proteger la biodiversidad en cualquier región del planeta.

Según un estudio de la Universidad Estatal de Oregon, la población de alces ha sido controlada por los lobos, lo que, a su vez, ha provocado que formaciones de árboles y arbustos en las cercanías de los ríos se hayan recuperado, ya que los alces no se han comido todos los ejemplares, arrancándolos de raíz.

Los lobos, indirectamente, han beneficiado aún más al ecosistema. Como las veredas de los ríos han mejorado, también ha mejorado el hábitat de la nutria y los peces, lo que supone más alimento para aves y osos. Han pasado quince años desde que los lobos fueron reintroducidos en el Parque de Yellowstone, después de haber desaparecido el siglo pasado. En el norte, las poblaciones de alces se han reducido de más de 15.000 en la década de los noventa del siglo pasado hasta cerca de 6.000 el pasado año 2011, según un estudio publicado en la revista Biological Conservation. 

En 2006, algunas especies de árboles, como los álamos, habían crecido hasta una altura suficiente a la que los alces ya no podían llegar. Los álamos estaban a salvo de los alces gracias a los lobos. De este modo, a lo largo de cuatro de los arroyos de la cuenca del río Lamar, un 20% de los brotes de álamos jóvenes sobrevivieron. 

En la naturaleza, todo ser vivo es necesario. Los ecosistemas se mantienen en equilibrio y sanos mientras la biodiversidad se conserve. Ahora, en Yellowstone, hay una centena de lobos que vigilan que el parque se mantenga bien conservado. Aunque, para ello, algún alce tenga que servir como alimento.

ORIGINAL: Yo soy amigo del lobo

Google Street View snaps Colombia’s natural treasures

Thanks to Google Street View, you can now feast your eyes on nine of Colombia’s stunning national parks from anywhere in the world.

Colombia Highlights

Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona - Cabo San Juan del Guia

Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona - Playa Arrecife - Playa Arenilla

Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona - Entrada Calabazo

Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona - Entrada Palanga

Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona - Playa Bahia Concha

Parque Nacional Natural Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta - Teyuna - Ciudad Perdida

Parque Nacional Natural Isla de Salamanca

Parque Nacional Natural Gorgona

Parque Nacional Natural Cueva de los Guácharos

Santuario de Flora y Fauna Iguaque

Parque Nacional Natural Chingaza - Laguna Seca

Parque Nacional Natural Chingaza - Laguna Seca

Parque Nacional Natural Los Nevados

Santuario de Flora y Fauna Otún Quimbaya

Cerro Monserrate

Iglesia San Pedro Claver

Plaza de Los Coches y Portal de Los Dulces

Simon Bolivar Park

Teyuna - Lost City

Tayrona National Natural Park

Tayrona National Natural Park

The Rock of Guatapé

Matecana de Pereira Zoo

Los Alcazares Ecopark

Blanca Beach - Baru Island

Cholon Beach - Baru Island

Hato Grande Estate

Puerto Velero Beach

Concha Bay Beach

Atanasio Girardot Stadium

Taganga Beach

Puerto Velero Marina

The images, that were made available on Google Street View as of Tuesday, give vast 360 views of some of Colombia’s best sea, land, and jungle scapes, as part of an initiative to promote the country’s biodiversity and range of places to visit.

The nine parks now available on the website include popular tourist destinations on the northern Caribbean Coast;
Tayrona and the home of Colombia’s “Lost City”,
la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, both of which were declared by UNESCO as a Biosphere Reserve of Man and Humanity.

The initiative, that was made possible by the 15 camera loaded “Trekker” device used to capture the 360 images, is in partnership with National Parks of Colombia (PNN), the conservation organization that ensures the protection of Colombia’s “extraordinary wealth” of natural environments.

“This tool allows us to see the parks how they are in reality, and experience the natural environment in a new way,” said the director of PNN, Julia Miranda.

The images of the popular tourist foot trails were captured over a period of one year and six months, in an effort to put Colombia on the map as a country rich in biodiversity, with a wealth of protected sites that must be visited.

“This was a titanic effort because it could only be done on foot. We wanted to show the biodiversity of the country, which is why we started in the national parks that we want to show the world,” said the manager of Google in Colombia, Laura Camacho

According to PNN, there is no plan to stop here. Colombia boasts 59 registered national parks, 26 of which have ecotourism potential, which is going to be developed by adding them to Google Street View’s database over the coming years.

“There is still so much to be discovered in Colombia”, said Miranda.

Despite being able to spot the occasional Speedo clad, pot-bellied tourist, the images prove that many of these astounding parks are still relatively safe from mass tourism, and may PNN continue to keep it that way.

ORIGINAL: Colombia Reports

by Grace Brown

Sep 9, 2015