This Is What Extinction Sounds Like | HuffPost Impact

We are all witnesses to climate change's devastating impact on our world. We just have to stop and listen.

It was spring 2004. The air was cool and still, the encroaching dawn light outlined the horizon; and there, in the heart of Californias Sugarloaf Ridge State Park, was Bernie Krause busily setting up his microphone.

The soundscape ecologist recorded the symphony of the forests sounds that day: the gurgle of the gushing stream; the melodic birdsong from sparrows and woodpeckers, robins and grosbeaks, towhees and wild turkeys. It was a rich and vibrant recording, a celebration of life and biodiversity.

Krause returned last year to the same spot in Sugarloaf, located a short drive from his Glen Ellen home. The details of the recording session were the same: springtime in early dawn, a microphone and a tripod. But the habitats soundtrack had altered dramatically.

[It was the] first spring in my 77 years that was completely silent, said Krause. There were birds. But there was no birdsong whatsoever. Even the surge of the stream could not be heard.

As Krause explained, the music of the Sugarloaf area had been diminishing for years, silenced in part by Californias record-breaking drought .

Between 2009 and 2015, under the full impact of the drought, you hear an almost complete lack of density and diversity , he told Outside magazine in December. Whether or not it regains vitality remains to be seen.

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