Save the Whales! - Nature sound expert to lead lost whales out of Sacramento Delta
Released on = May 16, 2007, 4:27 pm
Press Release Author = Wild Sanctuary, Inc.
Industry = Environment
Press Release Summary = Another pair of wayward whales have strayed from San Francisco Bay into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and Dr. Krause is ready to add his soundscape skill to the rescue efforts.
Press Release Body = NOTE: 2 PRESS RELEASES COMBINED
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
16 May 2007
Save the Whales!: Nature sound expert to lead lost whales out of Sacramento Delta
It's been 20 years since Wild Sanctuary's Bernie Krause was first summoned to help 'save the whales'. He certainly succeeded when 'Humphrey the humpback whale' headed up a delta slough at Rio Vista and needed some help with directions to get back toward the Pacific. After nearly a month of the whale's wanderings, it was Krause's expertise that offered up the underwater sounds of whales feeding that finally lured the lost whale home. Swimming 50 miles in just seven hours, Humphrey followed Krause's pre-recorded sounds all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
Another pair of wayward whales have strayed from San Francisco Bay into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and Dr. Krause is ready to add his soundscape skill to the rescue efforts.
We've gotten the go-ahead to proceed with a rescue plan along the lines of Humphrey,\" Krause stated.
"We are currently gathering up our gear and preparing the audio recordings of whales calling while feeding in Alaska, so we're ready to respond."
Krause has spent over 40 years collecting more than 3,500 hours of sound recordings of more that 15,000 creature voices from habitats around the world, including deserts, mountains, and marine environments. His Wild Sanctuary Audio Archive is the largest privately-held collection of natural sound recordings in private hands. Wild Sanctuary, his Glen Ellen, California-based office provides these sounds for science, the arts, and outreach.
Bio-acoustician Krause, and his Wild Sanctuary team, believe that soundscape is a vital indicator of habitat health, creature density, global warming, and other significant conditions, and can reveal important data that is only just beginning to be understood.
"The creature world is trying to tell us something," Krause stated. "If we only take the time, and make the effort to listen, we might find out some really helpful details."
By Thursday, Krause, plans on being able to set out on a boat and begin the underwater audio performance with speakers provided by the University of California at Santa Cruz.
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Company Notes:
Wild Sanctuary is home to the largest Privately-held archive of natural sound, anywhere.
Our worldwide collection represents over 3,500 hours of wild soundscapes and nearly 15,000 creatures. The mission: To help connect people to the wild by preserving, presenting, and protecting the voice of the natural world. We provide complete content, sound design, and media services for all types and styles of public space installations, multimedia and interactive exhibitry, web-based environments, new media, film and video production and more.
Contact:
Press Information contact: Katherine Krause, Vice President/PIO, Wild Sanctuary, (707) 996-6677 (office) (707) 327-6770 (cell) or kkrause@wildsanctuary.com.
Wild Sanctuary, Inc. PO Box 536 Glen Ellen, CA 95442 707-996-6677
While homing in on visual feasts around the globe, users of Google Earth will soon be able to listen to sounds from each site, urban to wild nature.
As reported by BBC News last week, Wild Sanctuary, a California company located in Glen Ellen, confirms that they are currently generating KML programming that can layer relevant recorded sounds over locations within the Google Earth format. With over 3,500 hours of soundscapes from all over the world, Wild Sanctuary President, Dr Bernie Krause, says that the firm is in talks with Google, although no official agreement has yet been made.
Says Krause, \"While a picture is worth a thousand words, a sound is worth a thousand pictures. We're giving the map a voice.a sense of 'there' with 'where.'\"
\'Add-on\' Dr Krause has spent the last 40 years collecting soundscapes, urban and rural, and his recordings include tens of thousands of animal voices from a huge array of habitats, including cities, deserts, mountains and the marine environment.
It is the largest soundscape collection in private hands, Krause acknowledges.
The idea would be to zoom-in on particular Google Earth sites and then have the option to listen to the particular sound signatures from a distinct location.
Krause and his team will be presenting the new software feature at the Where 2.0 conference in San Jose, California on 29 May.
Dr Krause anticipates that up to two dozen sounds would be show-cased at first, but many more would be added later. Wild Sanctuary is working in association with 30proof, a media design company, to develop the new feature.
In addition to the lively sounds, users would be able to access Google Earth to display how the sounds can indicate changes over time, as with climate or usage effects, global warming, or as a result of certain logging practices. He added, \"People will be able to get a sense of before and after such alterations. We now have evidence that from the sound perspective, even selective logging has a profound effect on the natural world. The pictures of before and after look exactly the same, but the sound is completely different.\"
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Company Notes: Wild Sanctuary is home to the largest private archive of natural sound, anywhere.
Our worldwide collection represents over 3,500 hours of wild soundscapes and nearly 15,000 species. The mission: To help connect people to the wild by preserving, presenting, and protecting the voice of the natural world. We provide complete content, sound design, and media services for all types and styles of public space installations, multimedia and interactive exhibitry, web-based environments, new media, film and video production and more.
Contact:
Press Information contact: Katherine Krause, Vice President/PIO, Wild Sanctuary, (707) 996-6677 (office) (707) 327-6770 (cell) or kkrause@wildsanctuary.com
Wild Sanctuary, Inc. PO Box 536 Glen Ellen, CA 95442 707-996-6677
Related links: . http://www.wildsanctuary.com . http://www.30proof.com
Photo Notes:
. Photos available upon request.
Links & Blogs discussing this release:
Gizmodo UK The Daily Mirror Tech Spot SlashDot The Cleveland Leader CrunchGear and the BBC
Keywords: Environment, Green, Google Earth, Conservation
Web Site = http://www.wildsanctuary.com
Contact Details = Press Information contact: Katherine Krause, Vice President/PIO, Wild Sanctuary, (707) 996-6677 (office) (707) 327-6770 (cell) or kkrause@wildsanctuary.com.
Wild Sanctuary, Inc. PO Box 536 Glen Ellen, CA 95442 707-996-6677
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