![]() Matthew: Microphones were recording continuously so we got lots of other sounds on them, like the lions walking, feeding, drinking, all those kinds of things. As somebody who works in audio, let me just tell you, the idea of wading through that amount of tape literally gives me a stress headache. So that was a huge dataset and was perfect for what we needed to do the analysis.Įmily: To get those 300 roars Matthew had to wade through 60 days of audio, which is 1440 hours. But we still recorded close to 300 roars from the male lions. We think this is because they had cubs at the time, and were reluctant to give away their position to potentially challenging males that might want to come in and kill the cubs. Matthew: So we fitted these devices to eight lions in Zimbabwe, five males and three females. They were studying group of lions in Zimbabwe, in the Bubye Valley Conservancy, and they managed to get their fancy-schmancy new collars on a pride of lions. This allowed us to collect this really big dataset of roars that we could use for our analysis.Įmily: So Matthew and his team took it to the field. They designed a special device for us, which we could attach to a lion collar, and this device recorded audio and movement data so that we could basically get a continuous recording of a lion’s life for about a week. We ended up forming a partnership with the computer science department at Oxford. So it was impossible for us to collect the data we needed using that method. We went out into the field with a special microphone and recorder and followed individual lions around hoping that they would roar for us. Initially, we tried to record the roars manually. ![]() But how do you make it work in practice? I mean, this does not sound easy. Their numbers are declining across much of Africa, so if we can identify a lion by its roar, we can potentially design a system that can monitor lions automatically.Įmily: So in theory, this sounds like a really cool idea. Then secondly, from a practical point of view, it is really important that we monitor lion populations effectively. So if we can figure out how they convey this identity information to other individuals in their calls, then we can begin to understand how this communication might have evolved over time. We also know that long distance communication is a really important part of lion social behaviour. The first point, from a biological perspective, is that it would be really interesting to understand how individual lions are able to recognise the calls of their neighbours and companions, because we already know they can do this. ![]() Matthew: So there are two reasons for this. So Matthew thought, “Hey, let us add an extra element to surveillance and start recording their audio.” Obviously, lions are vocal, they make noise to communicate. I have been working with WildCRU for the past couple of years, looking at lion behaviour, and also trying to incorporate new technology and trying to understand how we can apply these new technologies to understanding more about, specifically, lion vocal behaviour.Įmily: Matthew has spent a lot of time in the field watching lions but watching has its limits. Matthew Wijers: So my name is Matthew Wijers. For this one we have managed to find a researcher who has spent the past 10 years getting close to lions, maybe too close. This is the show where we seek out the brightest minds at the University of Oxford, and we ask them the big questions. ![]() But is that the same with all other animals, specifically, lions? Can you tell them apart by just using their roars? On this episode of The Oxford Sparks Big Questions podcast, we are heading into the wild and we are asking: do all lions sound the same? My voice is a unique characteristic of me. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |