Donovan Tye
- @donovantye
- | He/Him
This hands-on field course trains participants in bioacoustic principles and practice for terrestrial conservation, using acoustic recording and machine-learning tools to build practical monitoring skills. Designed for graduate students, researchers, and conservation practitioners, the course combines lectures, workshops, and field exercises across two weeks, culminating in the ability to collect, analyse, and apply acoustic data to real conservation questions. Fieldwork draws on Kruger National Park's exceptional avian and faunal diversity, with data collected during the course contributing to regional efforts to close the gap in African species representation within global sound libraries such as Xeno-Canto and the Macaulay Library.
KEY TOPICS
- Fundamentals of Bioacoustics: Understanding how animals produce and use sound for communication, navigation, and reproduction, and how acoustic signals can inform studies of behaviour, population monitoring, and community ecology.
- Field Recording and Study Design: Practical training in acoustic recorder and microphone setup, survey design, and deployment strategies for both focal species monitoring and broader soundscape recording.
- Acoustic Data Analysis and Interpretation: Species-level annotation and measurement in Raven, automated detection and classification using BirdNET, and ecoacoustic and soundscape analysis using Kaleidoscope. Participants will interpret acoustic outputs in the context of conservation decision-making.
WHERE
The course is hosted at the Skukuza Research Station, home of the Skukuza Science Leadership Initiative (SSLI), located within Kruger National Park, South Africa. As one of Africa's leading conservation landscapes, Kruger provides an exceptional setting for field-based training in applied biodiversity monitoring.
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