Passive acoustic monitoring — often simply called acoustic monitoring — is a tool used by ecologists and conservationists to study wildlife in their natural environment. Scientists place special recording devices in nature for a period of hours or days, during which time the devices record sounds of animals like birds, frogs, or bats. Researchers analyze these recordings to assess the presence, diversity, and change over time of animal populations. Acoustic monitoring gives conservationists a way to survey for hard-to-find animals in remote locations, as seen in “Wild Hope: The Frog Ark,” and it is also a useful non-invasive way to track the success of a rewilding project over time.
