'A great silence is spreading over the natural world'
'A great silence is spreading over the natural world'
Bernie Krause has spent 40 years recording nature's sounds. But such is the rate of species and habitat loss that his tapes may become our only record of the original diversity of life
John Vidal, environment editor
guardian.co.uk, Monday 3 September 2012 03.00 EDT
When musician and naturalist Bernie Krause drops his microphones into the pristine coral reef waters of Fiji, he picks up a raucous mix of sighs, beats, glissandos, cries, groans, tones, grunts, beats and clicks.
The water pulsates with the sound of creatures vying for acoustic bandwidth. He hears crustaceans, parrot fish, anemones, wrasses, sharks, shrimps, puffers and surgeonfish. Some gnash their teeth, others use their bladders or tails to make sound. Sea anemones grunt and belch. Every creature on the reef makes its own sound.
But half a mile away, where the same reef is badly damaged, he can only pick up the sound of waves and a few snapping shrimp. It is, he says, the desolate sound of extinction.
Krause, whose electronic music with Paul Beaver was used on classic films like Rosemary's Baby and Apocalypse Now, and who worked regularly with Bob Dylan, George Harrison and The Byrds, has spent 40 years recording over 15,000 species, collecting 4,500 hours of sound from many of the world's pristine habitats.
More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/03/bernie-krause-natural-world-recordings
= new reply since forum marked as read
Frankly, it saddens me a bit to hear of such destruction. Those who willingly destroy the environment, IMO, really are cancer on the body of Earth. 
(Also, on a lighter note, Bernie worked with Bob Dylan and George Harrison? Pretty cool stuff, man. 
