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Eavesdropping on America's National Parks

For four years, the National Park Service has been gathering natural sound in dozens of parks across the country. The idea is to protect visitors -- and wildlife -- from unwelcome noise.

So far, sound has been recorded in about 20 of the country's 388 national parks. The goal is not to preserve natural sound in recordings, but to have a baseline from which to preserve it in the wild.

The park service is essentially monitoring for noise pollution. It sees the natural soundscape as a resource -- for visitors, who repeatedly say in park surveys that they value it, and for wildlife.

"There are a lot of species of wildlife that are dependent upon the ability to hear sound, either to find food or avoid being someone else's food," says Karen Trevino, who heads the park service's Natural Sounds Program. She notes that some species use noise to find a mate, or to find shelter and safe nesting grounds.

Airplanes are a disruption in many parks, as are boats and snowmobiles. But Trevino says most sounds come from park service operations -- whether it's the rumble of laundry trucks or the jackhammer sounds from construction of roads and buildings. She says the park service is just starting to realize it needs to manage its own sound -- and that awareness is the first goal of the Natural Sounds Program.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

As supervising editor for Arts and Culture at NPR based at NPR West in Culver City, Ted Robbins plans coverage across NPR shows and online, focusing on TV at a time when there's never been so much content. He thinks "arts and culture" encompasses a lot of human creativity — from traditional museum offerings to popular culture, and out-of-the-way people and events.

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SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

Federal funding is gone.

Congress has eliminated all funding for public media.

That means $2.1 million per year that Connecticut Public relied on to deliver you news, information, and entertainment programs you enjoyed is gone.

The future of public media is in your hands.

All donations are appreciated, but we ask in this moment you consider starting a monthly gift as a Sustainer to help replace what’s been lost.