Filed under: Feature | Tags: Azores, Bernie Krause, Big Sur, California, Emergency service, Goleta, Health, Los Padres National Forest, Nature, Wild Sanctuary, Wildfire
ONLINE SITE OF THE WEEK: WILD SANCTUARY
When I think of natural sounds, I think of being at some less-than-satisfying massage place somewhere in the city, where my masseuse of the day has hit play on sounds meant to ‘calm’ and/ or ‘quieten’ my senses. In these circumstances, being at the ocean’s edge in Big Sur, CA seems comically irrelevant as I lay down for my massage in a small thread-bare room in NYC. Perhaps, that’s because the music is usually mixed with some god awful wind instrument which probably requires smoking hash to truly appreciate.
On the flip side of awful, wildsanctuary.com delivers 3,500 hours of natural soundscapes including 15,000 species as recorded by Dr. Bernie Krause. Krause’s mission is to record sound environments from all over the world before they disappear, overburdened by the sounds of man and machinery. To date, Krause claims that over 40% of the sound environments he has recorded have been destroyed.
Check out the Google XML overlayer (above) to hear sounds from all over the world. Check out the Azores in Portugal for something particularly hilarious. Perfect prank? Set this soundscape off in the living room while a loved one is napping. And then, send me the photos. . .
One more thing:
For anyone who has visited Big Sur, CA, you are aware of the truly majestic beauty of the area. I was just in Big Sur in May and cringe when I think of the thousands of acres burned in such a pristine natural preserve.
As of this posting, the wildfires have been raging in Big Sur for about a week and a mandatory evacuation order has been issued. The above site, Surfire2008.org offers a community for those displaced by the fire. If you’re in the CA area, there are areas on the site where you can offer housing or volunteer. For those not in the area, information on donating to the Big Sur Fire Relief Fund is included in the bottom right corner. Click here or on the image above for the homepage. Full unofficial reports from those on the ground are available on the blog.
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