05/21/2026
For some, Duke Farms sounded a little different last week.
We welcomed three scientists from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ben Gottesman, Tim Boycott, and Trifosa Simamora, to lead our first-ever bioacoustics workshop—a hands-on course designed for conservation practitioners who are using sound to better understand and care for the land.
Bioacoustics is a growing field which, thanks in part to advances in machine learning, allows researchers to capture soundscapes, process large audio datasets, and identify animals by their vocalizations. Our science and conservation team has been listening closely to the land for several years, using passive acoustic monitoring to study wildlife, track change, and inform land management decisions. As more colleagues across the field began asking how they might use these tools, too, this workshop became one answer.
By bringing together participants from land trusts, nonprofits, county government, and consulting firms, this course helped make emerging conservation tools more accessible to the people applying them on the ground.
At Duke Farms, that is part of the work: bridging research and implementation, and helping science move from listening to action.
