Here's how scientists are using machine learning to listen to fish

Here's how scientists are using machine learning to listen to fish

Source: abcnews

1/23/2022

As the sun rises over the island of American Samoa, a chorus of animal voices drifts upward. They're not the calls of birds, though -- the purrs, clicks and groans are coming from under the water. New research shows how automation can make it increasingly easy to eavesdrop on the fish making the sounds and uncover how their environment impacts them.

Jill Munger first heard about fish that make sounds while she was an undergraduate student. A veteran researcher told her about marine acoustics.

"She described it in this really cool way: I get to spy on critters in the ocean, without disturbing them," said Munger, currently a marine ecology researcher at Oregon State University. "When you're a diver you disturb the wildlife as you swim through, so you don't get to witness what they are doing when you're not there." But passive acoustic monitoring offers an unadulterated soundscape.