Piloted in 2022, the Avian Acoustic Monitoring program is part of a larger research project with partners such as the Washington Department of Natural Resources, the Olympic Experimental State Forest, Omfishient Consulting, the Sustainability in Prisons Project, Avian Acoustic Monitoring Technicians (incarcerated) and the Department of Corrections. The aim of the study is to better understand how to evaluate the sustainability of current forest management practices around the Olympic Peninsula. Incarcerated technicians learn to use a software program, Audacity, which shows a spectrogram of sound (visual wavelengths). Incarcerated technicians then learn to identify 10 indicator species of birds that are found within the study. This data is used by program partners to answer research questions regarding sustainable forest management.
Check out the feature of this new program on BirdNote’s June 21, 2023 episode!