Sound Data Examples

Below are spectrograms, a visual interpretation of sound data. The frequency of sound (i.e. its ‘pitch’) is represented by the Y axis, whereas the decibel level (loudness) is represented by the color, with louder sounds appearing brighter. Time is on the X-axis.

There are some examples of sound data from a preliminary study, where small audio recorders were attached to Central Arctic caribou GPS collars in Alaska in 2021.  Our final example is from a stationary recorder in a caribou maternity pen.

This audio above is from the small audio recorder attached to the caribou’s GPS collar. You can hear a caribou ‘burping’ in this audio, which is a part of the rumination cycle that they use to properly digest their food. We can see these burps are occurring regularly and we can hear the caribou is not doing much else. With audiologger data, our motion sensors could confirm that the caribou was at rest.

Below, you can see the burps outlined in white.

This sound clip is taken a few minutes after the rumination example above. We can hear an aircraft approaching, and as it gets loudest the caribou begins to move. With audiologger data, we would be able to tell how much the caribou moved and in what way (walking, running, head up). Sound disturbances like this may be more likely to occur near roads or mines and could disrupt the periods of rumination and/or rest that caribou need to properly digest their food.

This audio is from our collaborators that work with the critically endangered Klinse-Za mountain caribou her. The recording is from an acoustic recorder attached to the feeding trough inside a maternity pen where cows and their calves are kept safe from predators for several weeks when the calves are most vulnerable. Our audiologgers will be able to capture these kinds of vocal, cow-calf interactions on the calving grounds. From them, we can study how insect harassment affects the cow-calf relationship, and also determine when calves are taken by predators.