As recipients of the WILDLABS AWARDS 2024, our team - formed of Open Acoustic Devices (@Andrew_Hill, @alex_rogers, @PetePrince ) and the Zoological Society of London (@Anthony_Dancer, @LydiaKatsis, @LewisRowden) - is developing AudioMoth (a low-cost acoustic recorder) for the detection of African forest elephant rumbles. This critically endangered species is often found in dense forests, making it highly challenging to monitor using traditional methods. We aim to enable wide-spread monitoring of this species by developing a low-cost, low-frequency recorder that captures the far travelling rumbles that these forest elephants produce. 

The development will explore low-cost external plugin sensors, additional amplification/filtering circuitry, software to support lower sample rates and custom housings for long-term deployments. We will test hardware in the UK at ZSL’s Whipsnade Zoo, and run trials in Central Africa.  

The outcome of this project is to make the low-frequency AudioMoth available to acquire. We hope making the device available will enable monitoring of a wider range of species that produce infrasonic sounds, or even to discover additional species with as-of-yet-unknown infrasonic sound vocalisation abilities.