Wildlife

Wildlife Acoustic Monitoring for Welfare Assessment

Acoustic monitoring technology allows passive, non-invasive surveillance of wildlife populations and potentially welfare-relevant behaviours in the field.

Key Facts

Bioacoustic monitoring using passive recorders has expanded rapidly in cost and accessibility
Distress vocalisations in wildlife can indicate predation pressure, injury, or starvation
Bat acoustic monitors are standard tools for population monitoring and roost detection
Machine learning classification of wildlife sounds from large datasets is now commercially available

Welfare Considerations

Acoustic monitoring offers a non-invasive way to assess welfare-relevant states in wild populations at landscape scale. Understanding the distribution of distress calls could help prioritise welfare interventions. This is an emerging field with significant potential.

What You Can Do

Support organisations using acoustic monitoring for wildlife welfare assessment
Engage with open-access bioacoustic data platforms such as the Macaulay Library
Advocate for acoustic monitoring inclusion in environmental impact assessment