Nature's soundtrack: what we're learning by listening

Small recording devices placed throughout forests and valleys can capture thousands of hours of sounds, helping understanding of where species are living, how they're using the landscape, and how populations are changing over time.

For Southern Lakes Sanctuary, this technology is transforming monitoring of threatened species such as mohua and pekapeka (long-tailed bats). Working alongside traditional field surveys, acoustic monitoring allows detection of species that might otherwise go unnoticed, tracks wildlife across large and remote areas, and builds a detailed picture of ecosystem health over time.

In Makarora, automated recorders captured nearly 1,500 hours of audio and detected more than 20,000 mohua vocalisations, while newly developed AI tools can even distinguish between different types of calls and, potentially, individual birds. The same technology is helping Southern Lakes Sanctuary monitor a wide range of native species, from kea and kākā to ruru and tītipounamu.

The technology is also shedding new light on one of our most elusive native mammals. More than 160,000 recordings collected in Glenorchy and the Rees Valley revealed long-tailed bats were active almost every night and were present across a much larger area than previously understood.

By combining conservation expertise with new technology, local conservation programmes are not just listening to the forest and skies, they're learning from them.

Read more: Listening to the forest: how acoustic monitoring is transforming mohua conservation in the Southern Lakes

Read more: What the night revealed: listening to pekapeka in the Rees and Glenorchy

Photo credit: Southern Lakes Sanctuary