Mongabay Newscast

“This is an incredibly exciting time to be part of the field of bioacoustics,” our guest on this episode says, and she's so right: if you care about wildlife conservation, or really like technology and interesting solutions to big challenges, this episode is for you. Laurel Symes is assistant director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's bioacoustics lab, which was founded in the 1980s to study whale songs and elephant rumbles, and it just received a massive $24 million gift and changed its name to the K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics.  The Cornell program is therefore about to expand this field in many ways, from technology development to implementation, so we discuss their plans and the implications with this repeat guest, who previously joined the show to discuss her own fascinating work on the soundscapes of rainforests (episode 86). Many bioacoustics researchers like her have been featured by this show, so after discussing Laurel's exciting news, we feature some of our most popular acous