Acoustic sensors enable efficient and non-invasive monitoring of a wide range of species, including many that are difficult to monitor in other ways. Although they were initially limited in application scope largely due to cost and hardware constraints, the development of low-cost, open-source models like the Audiomoth in recent years has increased access immensely and opened up new avenues of research. For example, some teams are using them to identify illicit human activities through the detection of associated sounds, like gunshots, vehicles, or chainsaws (e.g. OpenEars).
With this relatively novel dimension of wildlife monitoring rapidly advancing in both marine and terrestrial systems, it is crucial that we identify and share information about the utility and constraints of these sensors to inform efforts. A recent study identified advancements in hardware and machine learning applications, as well as early development of acoustic biodiversity indicators, as factors facilitating progress in the field. In terms of limitations, the authors highlight insufficient reference sound libraries, a lack of open-source audio processing tools, and a need for standardization of survey and analysis protocols. They also stress the importance of collaboration in moving forward, which is precisely what this group will aim to facilitate.
If you're new to acoustic monitoring and want to get up to speed on the basics, check out these beginner's resources and conversations from across the WILDLABS platform:
Three Resources for Beginners:
- Listening to Nature: The Emerging Field of Bioacoustics, Adam Welz
- Ecoacoustics and Biodiversity Monitoring, RSEC Journal
- Monitoring Ecosystems through Sound: The Present and Future of Passive Acoustics, Ella Browning and Rory Gibb
Three Forum Threads for Beginners:
- AudioMoth user guide | Tessa Rhinehart
- Audiomoth and Natterjack Monitoring (UK) | Stuart Newson
- Help with analysing bat recordings from Audiomoth | Carlos Abrahams
Three Tutorials for Beginners:
- "How do I perform automated recordings of bird assemblages?" | Carlos Abrahams, Tech Tutors
- "How do I scale up acoustic surveys with Audiomoths and automated processing?" | Tessa Rhinehart, Tech Tutors
- Acoustic Monitoring | David Watson, Ruby Lee, Andy Hill, and Dimitri Ponirakis, Virtual Meetups
Want to know more about acoustic monitoring and learn from experts in the WILDLABS community? Jump into the discussion in our Acoustic Monitoring group!
Header image: Carly Batist
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Digital nomad, software developer, running mechatronic engineering firm in Seychelles to assist ocean conservation groups.
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National Geographic Society
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On the way to Bridge technology and Nature.
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Marine bioacoustician and elasmobranch scientist
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Data scientist/statistician working in bioacoustics and species distribution models, loves whales
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A Wildlife Biologist interested in Environment Assessment and Restoration, In-situ and Ex-situ strategies, Technologies used in Conservation and Illegal Wildlife Trade.
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University of Suffolk
Wildlife distributions and the effects that human activity has on populations. Spatial ecology of Amazonian mammals through audio and camera surveys. Hunter and gun tracking in Peru. Bats in suburban and agricultural landscapes in the UK
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Article
The 2018 Ecoacoustics Congress Wrap-up
Anthony Truskinger
Last month, the 2018 Ecoacoustics Congress was held in Brisbane. Bringing together scientists, natural resource managers, industry and artists, participants explored the ways that sound can deepen our understanding of...
25 July 2018
Article
This latest chapter in the Conservation Technology Series from WWF-UK looks at the opportunities, challenges and state-of-the-art of satellite remote sensing for conservation applications. This issue reviews available...
23 April 2018
Article
#Tech4Wildlife Photo Challenge 2018: Our Top 10
WILDLABS Team
Hundreds of people joined our #Tech4Wildlife photo challenge this year, showcasing all the incredible ways tech is being used to support wildlife conservation. We've seen proximity loggers on Tasmanian Devils in...
3 March 2018
Article
HWC Tech Challenge Update: Meet the Judges
WILDLABS Team
Our panel of international experts has been hard at work reviewing the 47 proposals we recieved for innovative technological tools to address human wildlife conflict. The panelists have systematically been assessing the...
20 October 2017
Article
Download New Conservation Tech Guidelines: Camera Traps, Acoustics and LiDAR
Paul Glover-Kapfer
The inherent complexity of not only deploying technologies in the field but also doing so in a scientifically rigorous manner can prove a substantial barrier for the effective use of conservation technologies, and clear...
11 October 2017
Article
Its been a busy couple of months for the Open Acoustic Devices team. They've just returned back from Belize where they have been trialling the new AudioMoth design for gunshot detection. Find out what they've been up to...
27 June 2017
Article
#Tech4Wildlife Photo Challenge: Our favourites from 2016
WILDLABS Admin
Are you ready for this year's #Tech4Wildlife Photo Challenge? In anticipation, we're counting down our ten favourite entries from last year. Do you think you can top these?
1 March 2017
Funding
Conservation Leadership Programme 2017 Award
WILDLABS Admin
The Conservation Leadership Programme (CLP) is a training and capacity building programme that targets individuals from developing countries who are early in their conservation career and demonstrate leadership...
21 November 2016
Funding
Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act grants via USFWS
WILDLABS Admin
Do you work on conserving Neotropical migratory birds? Do you need funding? Why not apply for a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service through the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act's grant program? The...
8 November 2016
Article
Caves don't tend to be well-liked ecosystems, being extremely dark, often quite cramped, and slippery. And the creepy-crawlies that live within them can be the stuff of nightmares. Nevertheless, one's attitude towards...
25 July 2016
Article
More than half of all primate species are endangered, including our closest living relative, the chimpanzee. Could Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) be applied to primates as well as it has been for other taxa? In this...
29 June 2016
Article
Since 2013, volunteer citizen scientists taking part in the Norfolk Bat Survey have generated over 1.2 million bat recordings, making this one of the most extensive high-quality datasets for bats collected by citizen...
5 February 2016
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43 Products
Recently updated products
| Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| If you search Digikey for a 'strain relief' you should be able to find a rubber grommet that will hold that mic without any additional machining. A blob of silicone will adhesive... |
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Acoustics | 1 week ago | |
| Thanks Carly! I had reviewed some of the help files, but clearly not the right ones!My email is [email protected] |
|
Acoustics, Software and Mobile Apps | 1 week 1 day ago | |
| Hi Tabitha, What recording settings were you using when you saw these differences? I've measured the consumption across some different firmware versions and I can't see any... |
+10
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Acoustics | 1 week 5 days ago | |
| Wow.. Really exciting to see this effort. Congratulations on the award!I have been interested in this subject for a long time, as we have elephant-human conflicts in plenty in... |
+7
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Acoustics | 2 weeks 3 days ago | |
| Hello!Long time, no update. @StephODonnell suggested I post here with my thesis and some reflections. ---------------------------------------------------------TL;DR... |
+19
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Acoustics | 3 weeks 6 days ago | |
| I think I've landed on the Wildlife Acoustics Song Meter Mini Bat 2 for now, but I'm definitely interested to see how this cheaper tech progresses |
|
Acoustics | 4 weeks ago | |
| Hi Jesse,For a material to be acoustically transparent (in air), the speed of sound in the material times its density must match that of air. Realistically, any solid... |
+1
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Acoustics, Biologging | 4 weeks ago | |
| Hi Steph, We appreciate the support! Thanks for the tag and your help managing the community!Patrick |
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Sensors, Acoustics, Conservation Dogs, Emerging Tech, Open Source Solutions | 4 weeks ago | |
| Hi Sol,If the maximum depth is 30m, it would be worth experimenting with HydroMoth in this application especially if the deployment time is short. As Matt says, the air-filed case... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Data management and processing tools, Emerging Tech, Sustainable Fishing Challenges | 4 weeks ago | |
| Oh wow, thank you so much!!!I will keep that four advices in mind! |
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Acoustics | 4 weeks 1 day ago | |
| You won't get any audio if you don't allow enough time for the hydromoth/audiomoth to write. So when you do a continuous recording you need to experiment a little. I'm sure there... |
+3
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Acoustics | 4 weeks 2 days ago | |
| Congratulations! My first hydromoth was just arrived yesterday and so excited! Looking forward for the update from your project!!! |
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Acoustics, Biologging, Climate Change, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Data management and processing tools, Emerging Tech, Open Source Solutions, Protected Area Management Tools, Sensors, Software and Mobile Apps | 4 weeks 2 days ago |
Recording problems with Audiomoths
30 December 2018 9:57am
2 January 2019 7:49am
Information and links to the new firmware and the app is here https://www.openacousticdevices.info/single-post/2018/12/12/Version-120---New-Firmware-and-Config-App-Now-Available. Note: there is a possiblilty of the update failing and the recovery proceedure is here https://www.openacousticdevices.info/support/device-support/device-bricked-during-firmware-update.
With batteries it is also to do with voltage decay as well as power. There was a discussion Nov 2017 about voltage limits and it was said that SD cards get a bit twitchy at less than 3.3v but the rest will still be operating at around 3v - I can't find any data on R06 however in general voltage drop is influenced by temperature, dicharge rate, age/no of recharges etc etc - your are right it may not the batteries but there is a possibility it might hence my suggestion.
I'd suggest also posting on the AudioMoth support forum, to see if anyone else has seen this issue and has a fix.
Cheers
David B
2 January 2019 10:01am
Forgot to say - if you are having trouble reformatting SDcards on Windows- the project suggests this programme http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?guiformat.htm.
Machine learning to detect fish bomb blasts
20 December 2018 1:16pm
3D printed audiomoth cases
18 December 2018 10:14am
Introductory online training videos in bioacoustic analysis using Raven
5 December 2018 10:43am
Monitoring Ecosystems through Sound: The Present and Future of Passive Acoustics
Ella Browning
4 December 2018 12:00am
AudioMoth is now available on LabMaker
5 September 2018 5:17pm
How to share data on species to help conserve them… whilst avoiding them being exploited by poachers
Ayesha Tulloch
20 August 2018 12:00am
Ocean Hack: San Francisco, 10-11th September, 2018
One Ocean Collab
20 August 2018 12:00am
AudioMoth group purchase (round 5) is open now.
26 July 2018 3:43pm
7 August 2018 4:00pm
I love seeing how much this little device has taken off!
The 2018 Ecoacoustics Congress Wrap-up
Anthony Truskinger
25 July 2018 12:00am
Audiomoth Group Purchase (Round 3)
5 February 2018 12:02pm
11 April 2018 5:26pm
Hi all,
Do to the success of Round 3 (hitting its target 15 days early and reaching the stock limit) we have started to explore the possibility of launching a 4th round, with a shorter time frame (probably 15 days) and with a limit of 250 devices. This will all come down to component stock, and finding it, so we'll update you next week (16th April) once we have confirmed it's possible.
Kind regards,
Alasdair
23 April 2018 5:36pm
Quick update from @alasdair - 'The 4th round of AudioMoth will go live Mon 30th April and there will be 250 made available. This has been made possible as we need to manufacture all those from round 3 and 4 at the same time whilst we await a stock re-order of a component.'
Alasdair has promised to post the time it goes live as it's bound to fill up quickly, given how fast the third round sold out. Stay tuned!
23 April 2018 5:53pm
Hi Stephanie, thanks for the update above. We will be doing two things this week to support the community. To meet the demand from Round 3 we require an essential component (MOSFET) and so we are planning to;
1) contact the 110 backers from this round (3) to ascertain how many have field trip deadlines and work with CircuitHub, the manufacturer, to see what's possible to meet deadlines - i.e identifiying other stockists of the missing component, or possibly an advanced run with the stock available now for those with an urgent deadline.
2) Launching a 4th Round on Monday 30th April with 250 devices available. This will have a shorter run time of 14 days and is possible as it will end shortly before the delivery of the stock needed to complete orders from both round 3 and 4, allowing us to help those who couldn't get in to round 3.
All the best,
Alasdair | Arribada Initiative
Conservation Technology User Guidelines Issue 4: Satellite remote sensing for conservation
Paul Glover-Kapfer
23 April 2018 12:00am
Listening to the Forest: WWF Fuller Seminar
27 March 2018 8:28pm
#Tech4Wildlife Photo Challenge 2018: Our Top 10
WILDLABS Team
3 March 2018 12:00am
Group purchasing of the AudioMoth (Round 2) is now live
7 December 2017 2:07pm
5 February 2018 11:36am
Hi everyone, we have received an update from GroupGets on the shipping of the second group purchase.
'Quick update everyone. The boards are scheduled to ship to us from Circuit Hub on Feb 12. We will promptly ship out once we have them. The lead-time slipped due to the large amount of orders. Thanks for being patient!'
For those with small orders, your order will come to us at Arribada first and we will ship out from here. This greatly reduces the import taxes to you but will mean a small wait.
By taking part in this group purchase you have hugely reduced the cost per device for everyone involved. Thanks so much for your patience.
Technology Empowered Conservation Lecture Series
Paul Jepson
18 January 2018 12:00am
Bird Bioacoustics
16 October 2017 1:23pm
10 January 2018 2:44am
Hi Carlos and others working on bird bioacoustics,
@SteffenOppel flagged a new issue of Avian Conservation and Ecology that might be of interest as it nicely intersects with what you were looking at in your workshop and follow up survey. This issue is about Advancing bird population monitoring with acoustic recording technologies, and is available here.
Presumably you've closed the survey now, did you get useful feedback from it that complements the information collected from delegates? What are your next steps for this work?
Cheers,
Steph
11 January 2018 10:02am
Thanks for that Steph - and for the link in included. A good set of papers there, and the review by Shonfield & Bayne on 'current use and future application' is really useful.
The SurveyMonkey should still be open for people to add to - and some good additional feedback has already been gained on my initial proposals for a survey protocol. The next step for me is get this written up and published in CIEEMs In Practice in the next couple of months.
All the best, Carlos
Group purchase of the AudioMoth from Open Acoustic Devices imminent
16 April 2017 1:32am
5 December 2017 10:01am
HI Alasdair,
pardon me if this is irrelevant, do you know any device which we can use to record low frequencies like sounds of elephants etc? I don't think AudioMoth is capable. I'm just trying to find such a device/technology.
kind regards!
Nilaksha
6 December 2017 6:55pm
Hi everyone,
Good news! The second group purchase is going live this week. We've been preparing things with GroupGets to get it live, so I'll post the link to the campaign for those who want to get their hands on a device. I may start a new thread for the second round as this one is getting a tad long.
@nilaksha - do you have a specific frequency range you'd like to target in regards to your elephant research? The AudioMoth may already be capable if you can let us know your target.
6 December 2017 8:15pm
Good news indeed, Al! I think a new thread is definitely a good idea - this one is getting rather unwieldy.
@nilaksha, you might check out @Jan+Kees 's serval sensor thread as well, as he's working on elephant recordings so it could be of interest. It's over here.
Cheers,
Steph
Acoustics for Human-Wildlife Conflict Prevention, Anti-poaching, and more
27 April 2017 5:28pm
2 November 2017 2:20pm
Hi Chris,
thx for sharing your ideas. We indeed cracked the problem of recognitizing sound types and to deploy a trained convolutional network model on a RPi. The information we process includes dB-levels per audio band, thus, yes, that is also possible on a RPi.
The current version of the sensor can 'talk' LoRa and GPRS, but that was the easy part. If necessary, we can install a local LoRa-network. We have our own one running around our office.
Power consumption is the actually the limiting factor in terms of for which problems you can or cannot apply the SERVAL technology. We are developing it to mitigate HWC-situations, as these are by definition within the zone between nature and culturalized land. Power is less of a problem in these zone, because we can detect elephant rumbles and tiger roars on several km's distance.
Thus, the sensor is ready, but the data processing and learning is not. At this moment we are searching for funds or volunteers to help us process the recordings. Once that work is completed, we are ready for the field ;-)
2 November 2017 4:16pm
sign me up as a volunteer!
:-]
Being a Cornell grad, I have a Raven Pro license.
agreed, power is everything. Again, with the GPU-accelerated FFTs, is it perhaps possible to run the algorithms on an RPI A, or perhaps even a Zero? Or is this done via Raven batch mode?
I'm quite interested to acoustically detecting human activity in general; i.e. trucks, motorcycles, gunshots, chainsaws, and with hydrophones, motorboats, but also collect/harvest vast amounts of data in super-remote places for TEAM, as per: http://www.teamnetwork.org/about , and generally target the SMART folks of: http://smartconservationtools.org/smart-partnership/ I'll be at the World Bank in a few weeks for: http://conferences.iaia.org/wdc2017/ , with the goal being to find a sponser to pilot this sort of thing for biodiversity monitoring.
(and while we're burning power, perhaps discriminating bipeds vs quadrupeds visually, as per: https://github.com/wzyuliyang/RaspberryHOG, https://www.pyimagesearch.com/2015/11/09/pedestrian-detection-opencv/ ..?)
Anyway, extremely good to find you.
How can I participate?
Chris
2 November 2017 5:03pm
Great. Let's continue our discussion that through Skype ;-) My skype name is jkschakel and you can email me at [email protected].
I'm available on Tuesday or Wednessday night (Amsterdam time) or Thursday. Could you please send me an email with your skype name and some cv or whatever for me to orientate?
To answer your other questions:
- Yes, we do use Raven (light) to extract the sound samples.
- No, we don't use raven on the RPi, and because it has to analyse sounds in realtime, the Zero is (currently) not powerful enough.
- crunshing and analysing the numbers is done on the RPi, but we bypass visualisation. The output is a numerical class (representing e.g. chainsaw, elephant at circa 1000m, etc) which is transmitted to the rangers.
- We certainly share our interests - let's see how we can join forces. We have cracked the techno aspects and know how to create the model, but have not yet found a sponsor to fund that labour. Help in terms of funds or hands-on time is highly appreciated!
HWC Tech Challenge Update: Meet the Judges
WILDLABS Team
20 October 2017 12:00am
Imagery request
6 March 2017 11:55am
7 March 2017 11:09am
Amazing, thanks Arik!
15 March 2017 4:27pm
Hey Paul,
Emma and Paige have also given the go ahead to use their photos, they also have some other photos you might be able to use!
@WILDLABSNET Absolutely, I'd be more than happy to help. I've got lots of photographs from my acoustic monitoring projects. Thanks!
— Emma Checkley (@EmmaCheckley11) March 8, 2017
@WILDLABSNET Yeah, I've definitely got some of those lying around!
— Paige A. Byerly (@paigebyerly) March 8, 2017
16 October 2017 1:18pm
Paul,
Hi - is this still needed, as I'm sure we could provide something relating to birds, bats and cetaceans?
Thanks, Carlos
New R package: 'soundecology'
7 February 2017 3:17pm
16 October 2017 12:51pm
Steffen,
Thanks for that tip-off, I'd not seen that paper before. One of the speakers at my bird bioacoustics meeting in July covered soundscape ecology, with some interesting data comparisons of the different metrics. His presentation is on our website if you would like a copy?
Also, I've just emailed Danile Hayhow about the work on capercaillie I've been doing in 2016 & 2017- recording lekking calls to see if an activity index compares with standard survey methods. I'd be very keen to talk this over with yourselves at the RSPB in preparing the journal publication, as it will incorporate the survey data from 2017 collected by RSPB Scotland staff.
Thanks, Carlos
Download New Conservation Tech Guidelines: Camera Traps, Acoustics and LiDAR
Paul Glover-Kapfer
11 October 2017 12:00am
Describe Your Work in Six Words
13 September 2017 5:40pm
Elephant communication translation
14 August 2017 2:30pm
6 September 2017 10:47pm
Wow, this would be amazing to continue on with the years of data I have from tigers! I understand their social lives are very different but it would be interesting to see what other species could be highlighted on a platform like this.
Trialing Audiomoth to detect the hidden threats under the canopies of Belize
Andrew Hill
27 June 2017 12:00am
Product Grant Program for Wildlife Acoustics hardware & software
12 June 2017 7:35pm
Wolf detector prototype
30 April 2016 2:10pm
23 May 2016 1:16pm
Hi Arik
Did you already test it with wolves?? I would be very interested in learning your results as I am preparing some accustic monitoring of wolves for my PhD.
keeping in touch
Nuno
23 May 2016 1:19pm
Hi Nuno,
Still working on the design, and in particular the microphone technology so that we can be confident of detecting animals at long range. Our current system using SM3s works well up to several kilometers.
Where are you planning to detect wolves? Will you be at CSF next month? We could talk more there. But keep an eye on this thread and I'll post updates.
Thanks,
Arik
5 June 2017 6:22pm
Hi guys, interesting discussion. As you may have read, we are developing an elephant-detector (to avoid HWC's). The technology we are using (neural networks) can also be used to learn to recognize wolves automatically. If you have wolf-sound samples for us, we can create a classifier to automatically process your recordings. Alternatively we may be able to run the classifier in real-time on a RPi. But like you mentioned above, power consumption is an issue. Maybe less so if we can mount the sensor on a street light with car battery or something. What do you think?
Comparing two sound wave files - for a conservation game
20 March 2017 8:59am
29 March 2017 8:46pm
Dynamic Time Warping is often used as a foundation.
30 March 2017 1:47am
Hey Gautam!
Could you share few sample files? I want to try out a couple algorithm and see if that's useful to you.
Thanks,
Bhavesh
7 April 2017 1:42pm
Hi Bhavesh - thanks a lot. WildLabs doesn't allow me to upload .wav files - can I email you or get them to you another way? They are small - 2 seconds each.
You can email me at [email protected]
Gautam!
#Tech4Wildlife Photo Challenge: Our favourites from 2016
1 March 2017 12:00am
2 January 2019 3:00am
Hi David
Thank you for your answer. I'm using 2000mAh Fujitsu R06 batteries. When configuring the AudioMoths, daily energy consumption is said to be 72mAh. The batteries should last for at least 20 days. I've never had them deployed for more than seven days straight (and they even did the zero lenght files at deployment for only three days). Maybe the energy consumption calculator in the configuration program is faulty?
Where can I find the firmware?
Alex