Ecoacoustic monitoring

‘Why and how to set up a successful ecoacoustics study’

Thursday 19 October 2023
13:00 UK time / 08:00 Eastern time

Chair

Paul Howden-Leach, Wildlife Acoustics

Speaker

Dr Oliver Metcalf, Lancaster University & Baker Consultants

Gavin Ward MCIEEM Cenv, Baker Consultants

About the workshop

The popularity of ecoacoustics as an innovative environmental discipline has enjoyed immense growth within the last five years, to a point where it is now becoming difficult to keep up with all the new research papers published. What soon becomes apparent, however, is a lack of consensus on which recording and analysis protocols to follow; partly a result of the differing requirements of each research project, but also an historical artefact of the tropical origins of much of this research.

In this workshop, researcher and ecological consultants Dr Oliver Metcalf and Gavin Ward share the results of a collaborative project in the ecoacoustics community, led by Manchester Metropolitan University and Baker Consultants, that created guidelines for approaching ecoacoustic research, and share how these guidelines can be practically followed for successful project outcomes.

Baker Consultants is an AER Member and have made their guidelines freely available on AER: Good practice guidelines for long-term ecoacoustic monitoring in the UK

Their white paper, mentioned at the end of the workshop, is also available on AER: Ecoacoustic Bird Surveys: Comparison with traditional survey methods

About the chair

Paul Howden-Leach is the UK Business Development Consultant at Wildlife Acoustics as well as an ecological consultant, having started in 2000 and set up his own consultancy, Skyline Ecology, in 2013. The majority of Paul’s consultancy work relates to bats but he also trains people in recording and analysing data for lots of other wildlife. He has grown an interest in ecoacoustics in general, and how to create and produce soundscape recordings for both scientific and artistic purposes.

About the speakers

Dr Oliver Metcalf is a Conservation Scientist at Lancaster University working primarily with ecoacoustics. He has been involved in developing new techniques that assess biodiversity in a range of settings and has extensive experience in industry, having worked in ecological consultancy as an ornithologist and ecologist for over 7 years.

Gavin Ward MCIEEM Cenv is a Chartered Environmentalist with over 20 years experience working in the ecology & EIA sector. He is the Consultancy Director for Baker Consultants, who are based in Derbyshire, and he will discuss some the ways that these guidelines have evolved from, and also continue to shape some of their commercial and research-led projects.