Complexity and Quiet – Understanding Soundscapes with Mike Kearsley

Behind the Scenery

“The intangible version of an undeveloped area where you don't have buildings, you don't have roads. You look at that and you say this is complete. This is intact. And the same way for a soundscape. You don't hear a bus going by or a helicopter or an aircraft or a jet overhead. That's what, an intact soundscape would be.”

As Grand Canyon’s Wilderness Coordinator, Mike Kearsley spent years understanding what makes a healthy soundscape. This and more in this episode of Behind the Scenery!

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Jesse: Hey, this is Jesse. On this episode of the podcast, we're featuring an interview with retired Grand Canyon Wilderness Coordinator, Mike Kearsley. The interview was recorded by Desert View rangers Dawn Thompson and Melissa Panter. You’ll also hear from Science and Resource Management Deputy Chief Sarah Haas at the very end of the episode. Enjoy.

Mike: My name is Mike Kearsley. Now I am retired from the Park Service. I do still work a little bit. I work for, the road scholar program at NAU doing hikes with people, showing them the Grand Canyon, Organ Pipe, Saguaro other places like that. And before that, I worked in the Resource Management Division at Grand Canyon. I started working there in 2007. Was brought on to do the vegetation map. I mapped, coordinated the vegetation mapping of the park and parts of Lake Mead that were part of Grand Canyon Parishant National Monument. And after that ended in 2012, I worked on the backcountry management plan. We, I did mostly impacts analysis and affected environment writing, that kind of thing. And then in 2016 became the wilderness coordinator and um and actually became a permanent employee in 2019. Yeah. Yeah. And, as Wilderness Coordinator, one of the duties was working on soundscapes questions along with minimum requirements analyses, impacts analysis, backcountry campsite monitoring, all kinds of stuff.

Dawn: Yeah. So for most people listening, they might not know what a soundscape is. So, would you want to, like, explain what that, is and what that means?

Mike: Um it, it's the acoustic environment that you are in. It is the auditory or acoustic qualities of an area, and it's specific to the area, specific to the time of year.

Dawn: In my, in my program, I talk about soundscapes. I'm like, it's inescapable. Like you're always in a soundscape, always,

Mike: You’re always in a soundscape!

Dawn: And you're always contributing to it.

Mike: It's one of the intangible parts of the environment that you're in. It's like the, like a smell, like aroma.

Dawn: So when you were studying soundscapes at the Grand Canyon, what exactly where you studying or looking for?

Mike: We were mostly doing, compliance monitoring for overflights. Overflights are limited to certain parts of the park, and the reason for doing that is that they want to limit the amount, the total area of the park that is exposed to aircraft noise more than a certain percentage of the day. And so we had our listening stations set up underneath these air tour corridors. So that was the primary reason for monitoring soundscapes.

Dawn: Yeah. When you're talking about like, a listening station, like, what do you, like describe that to me.

Mike: OK. It's, it's a set up that has two components. One of them is just an audio recorder, a digital audio recorder that records the sounds, and it's paired with a sound pressure level meter that's a little more technical. It does more or less the same thing, but it breaks the, sounds into intervals of the sound spectrum that are one third octave tall or one third octave broad. And for each of those intervals of the spectrum, it says it, it records how, how much sound pressure there is, the, the loudness of that sound pressure.

Dawn: Right.

Mike: So there's those two things, microphones, a solar panel, a big battery pack. And usually we would put a wildlife camera out just to, in case there was something that was happening that we picked up on the acoustic recording and didn't understand what was making it we could we could look at that. We recorded some really interesting wildlife stuff, trespass livestock coming through.

Dawn: Yeah! Mike: Horses, destroying the the solar panels turning over all of our buckets. It was uh, it's fun. Yeah.

Dawn: Yeah. I think on the the sound drive, there's, audio of elk licking the foam off of, like, an SM4, which is pretty funny.

Mike: Yep. What is that sound? Well, now we needed a way to understand what that sound was.

Dawn: Wait, so were you like manning these, like, listening stations or would you like You put them up and then, like…

Mike: When they first started putting them out in the early 2000s, it was part of the air tour management plan that they were putting together. They would do, attended listening just to verify what it was, that they were hearing on the recordings. But for the most part, no, you just set it up, recorded an audio timestamp. You look at your GPS, what's the GPS time in three, two, one clap. It's 11:05. And so that way you can synchronize the, the acoustic recording with the sound pressure level meter.

Dawn: Oh.

Mike: So I mean, that was, but but then you walk away and you don't come back until either you need to service it or you want to download a week's worth of stuff. But yeah, there's very little, we did very little, attended listening.

Dawn: Right on. I was just imagining, like, a couple of scientists, like, sitting out, just, like, really quiet for many hours, you know. And so you were under the flight corridors?

Mike: Yeah.

Dawn: And this was, are these, like Air Tours?

Mike: They’re air tours, right. There are specific areas where the air tours are supposed to fly. There's one over by Desert View at Zuni Point. It goes right over Zuni Point, goes north. There's another one that comes south that goes over the Dragon. It's, peninsula off of the North Rim and goes over, I think it's Bouchet Use Area west of Hermit, Hermits Rest and then east west. That one goes back from the southern end of that it goes back to the Tusayan Airport. At the north, and the Zuni Corridor turns west and goes across the North Rim just north of the Basin.

Melissa: Did you have stations like, all throughout that?

Mike: No, just at the southern end of the Zuni Corridor and the Dragon Corridor. And then we'd set one up in the Basin to catch those three points, because those are more or less the, places where the, we saw the most activity. And it's also where you're going to intercept most of the traffic.

Dawn: Yeah. Just because it's my personal curiosity and I think I'd ask you this before, was that affecting wildlife if it was, like, in what ways?

Mike: Before the air tours were required to fly more than 1000ft above the rim they, and before these air tour corridors were established, they could fly anywhere. And they would typically drop over the rim and fly around below the rim.

Dawn: Yeah.

Mike: And of course, you want to see things. And pilots like to point out wildlife. And there was a grad student at NAU whose master's thesis showed that when a herd of bighorn was harassed if that's the word by, by an air tour it stressed them out there. They didn't have as many, offspring. They didn't have as many young. They were always, they were moving around. So, that's, after the change to the air to recorders that was much reduced. And by putting them up above the rim, I think, that that also reduced the amount of impacts on wildlife.

Dawn: Totally. Yeah. I think when Sarah and I were talking, you had like, described it like the wild west of the sky like before they had the corridors, which boggles my mind.

Mike: Yeah, I was, when I was 12 years old, I flew from Williams over the rim and the pilot dropped us down in and flew us all around. We had, our car broke down and Williams on a big cross-country trip, and that was our way of wasting time while the parts for a Volkswagen bus came up from Phoenix and they actually, the guy, the pilot flew us all over the place. And the whole time he was saying, keep your eye out, my buddy so-and-so is up here too, and I don't know where he is. So there was another pilot flying there right below the rim. Yeah, it was a source of anxiety for sure while we were flying.

Dawn: Wow, dang. It's so different now.

Mike: Very different. And much more popular. I mean, there's a lot more flights now than there were then. And if you're in Bouchet, it's really insane because they're right on top of you the whole time.

Dawn: I can imagine that would, like, affect, a visitor’s or like, just anyone's, like personal experience if they have, like, all these flights going overhead.

Mike: Right.

Dawn: When you were studying soundscapes with interns and stuff, like, was anything like that measured or like.

Mike: No, that took place mostly in a lot of those interviews and studies took place in the early 2000s. They were, they would set up, you know, all across the South and North Rims. They looked at, they recorded in many different places to find out, you know, what was the impact. And, yeah, it was we were just specifically focused on the, the air tour corridors.

Dawn: So I know you had talked about some like interns like when you had interns.

Mike: Oh, yeah.

Dawn: Were there any interns who, like, inspired you or that you learned from or…

Mike: There were there were a number of them. That was one of the joys of my job was working with interns who were fresh out of college or out of their master's degree and excited about the work. And the first two we had were, Maggie and Hannah who basically resurrected the program I had been given the program which had remained, which had been dormant since probably 2010 and this is 2017. They found the gear, they got it working. They contacted the regional people from Natural Sounds and Night Skies who came out and helped them put it together, show up, do it. And basically, they set up the program. Based on what what they were trained with. We had somebody come out and do training of the analysis, training of the gear set up, troubleshooting, you know, they got, and because the gear was so old, they got very good at repairing things. You wouldn't think working in resource management, you'd learn to solder. But they were all really, really good at soldering by the time they were done.

Dawn: Wow!

Mike: So they were, they were awesome, enthusiastic and ready to go. And actually, Hannah works here. She she's the hydrologist. She was she's a physical scientist by training, was a hydrologist and got her masters in hydrology, but did this because it was interesting to her. Who else, Belén was another all-star. She was a funny person who was not trained in soundscapes. She was a physicist. She worked on small particle physics and had spent time at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. And only came to do this because the pandemic happened, that she could travel back there. And she was she was really good at coding. She was a coder. And part of the issue I have is that I am not a coder. I don't understand digital audio files and how to manipulate them. And she took this project on and kind of moved us away from the compliance and the things to, looking at the broader, questions about soundscapes. I think when we talked on the phone we talked about acoustic complexity. Complexity comes when you get multiple elements. Think about songbirds in the morning, and their sounds change very rapidly. So one minute, one second to the next, or one 10 second interval to the next the sounds you hear are very different. The pitch is different, the duration is different. The, the loudness is different. All those elements go into the idea of complexity and in an area that just has natural sound in the sounds, the acoustic environment is more complex because you don't hear the same thing over and over again. In areas where it's dominated by humans sounds or it's unpopulated there really is no complexity there. It's very monotonous. Helicopters going over. They sound the same. You know, for the two minutes you can hear them. But, you know, a towhee or something has a very complex song. And it's, when you break it down, it has a lot of different elements. So the idea is that a complex acoustic environment is one that has a lot of natural sounds and not manmade sounds. And she got locked into that. There was a study going on at Sequoia-Kings Canyon, a long term study where they were looking at acoustic complexity in areas that had burned and, not burned. And, and asking, well, is this, or burned in areas that had been managed for fire and areas that had not been managed for fire. So, you know, big wildfire versus a controlled burn kind of thing. And she got interested in that question and sort of moved, by writing code that would do the analysis, she was got the program sort of moved in that direction.

Dawn: Wow.

Mike: And the third one was Maddie. Maddie. That's right. She came to us from the Listening Lab. The Park Service works with Colorado State University to do analysis for parks, soundscape analysis for parks that don't have somebody on site, the expertise locally to do it. And she worked in that lab for all four years of her undergrad who was an RU thing, a work study, program. And by the time she was done, she was actually running the lab because the lab manager had moved away, he moved on to something else. And so when she came, she brought all of this knowledge about how the Park Service does these, these studies. And, you know, didn’t need my minimal instruction. In fact, it was probably a hindrance, and she, she got everything organized. Looked back at the old data we had, it was a skill she had that, you know, she understood the analysis, what the data was and how to do the standard analysis. And so she went back at a couple of stations and did a historical, comparison, across time. So, yeah, those were three wonderful people I got to work with. Exciting people to work with.

Dawn: Wow. That’s so inspiring! I feel like I love the acoustic complexity.

Mike: Yeah!

Dawn: I feel like that would be so cool to study and learn about.

Mike: Yeah, we we we tried to set up a study comparing areas that had had controlled burns before and after with adjacent control site. But they never burned. They never I mean, it was too dry for the two years that I was there and then I think they did burn them last year.

Dawn: Yeah. Melissa also had a couple questions. And the question is like, what makes the soundscape like whole or complete?

Mike: Complete, I think is when it's not dominated by human made, human caused sounds. I mean overflights vehicles. The intangible version of an undeveloped area, you know, where you don't have buildings, you don't have roads. You look at that and you say, oh, this is complete. This is intact. And the same way for a soundscape. You don't hear a bus going by or a helicopter or an aircraft or a jet overhead. That's what, an intact soundscape would be. And it's not necessarily that there's sounds there. I mean, sometimes there's nothing there.

Dawn: When you're, like, listening to a soundscape, other than, when you're like, listening to study something, how do you like, how are you personally impacted by soundscapes?

Mike: I find it calming. You know, you focus. It's it's like when you're doing a math problem or something that you're focused on. It's, you're using these other tools to study, so, you know, it makes me calm when I'm trying to experience or trying to record in my own head. What what's going on around me. Does that make sense?

Dawn: No. Yeah. Totally. No. Yeah. In my soundscape program, I talk about, like, noise, how noise impacts humans and how it's like, only second to air pollution as like, the most harmful.

Mike: Oh really?

Dawn: Yeah. Which I thought was just interesting because it's not something we normally think about.

Mike: Did you find the the study, the visitor use study where they say that the number one reason for visiting Grand Canyon is to experience the sounds of nature?

Dawn: Mm hmm.

Mike: We we, we belong to the Conservancy, and we got the most recent, they have a little magazine that comes out a couple times a year. And one of the things, one of the articles in there was talk about why people come to Grand Canyon. They listed first “soundscapes”.

Dawn: Yeah, yeah.

Mike: It's gratifying.

Dawn: Yeah. So important we don't even, sometimes we don't even think about it. Right. Yeah.

Mike: Yeah. It's that intangible quality that you, that you need right.

Dawn: Yeah I do a couple of pop ups where I ask people like where is the quietest place they have been. And it's interesting, some people will say the Grand Canyon, just in comparison to where they've been. But some fun answers I've also gotten was scuba diving and Antarctica.

Mike: Antarctica, that’s a good one.

Dawn: So, but yeah, it's just interesting to compare to see like where people are coming from because I think Grand Canyon is kind of a noisy place or like.

Mike: It is when you're at the South Rim. I mean, that's, when you compare the South and North Rims it's much less busy on the North Rim, and there's places that you can walk to that aren't quite as busy. I mean, Mather Point sure, you can see the Grand Canyon, but it's it's really busy. There's, I was thinking about this after we talked and I was thinking, oh, there's camps, river camps. There's Schist Camp on the river. There's, Ledges Camp that are just incredibly quiet. There's no rapids. You're not near a flight corridor so you're not going to get, the air tours in the morning and the evening. You'll still hear jets, but they are remarkably quiet. Really, really quiet. But you'll still hear, you know, at at Ledges you'll hear a little dripping spring at the way down stream end of camp. But you can have, you know, indoor voice conversation 50 feet apart from people. It’s really cool. Just above Saddle was a research camp we used to go to every year and in the spring and it had a bunch of trees in the back and a bunch of vegetation all through. And we had one of the great dawn choruses there, the birds waking up in the morning. It was like, oh, this is, after a while you wanted them to shut up, but… “I'm awake, I get the message.”

Dawn: What is your hope for soundscapes at the Grand Canyon? Or just like in general, like in the world?

Mike: I yeah, I hope it's, my hope for soundscapes would be, the Grand Canyon soundscapes would be that there would be times when there are no air tours overhead, you know, they restrict them to, you can't have air tours before half an hour after sunrise. They can't be out there at sunrise while you're enjoying it or half an hour before sunset. You know, I think the park can promote places that have intact soundscapes. And it would be nice if there were ways to create times when you aren't going to have, air tours. I mean, air tours are the they're they're the biggest impact. There's a guy who works for the Sierra Club who wants to have air tours, free days, you know, like a Saturday twice a year, just no air tours over Desert View, Hermit or whatever just so people can experience that. And there's more air tours at Grand Canyon than there are, well a couple of years ago this was the fact: There are more air tours at Grand Canyon than there are in the next three NPS units combined. And that's just what comes out of Tusayan that ignores everything that comes out of Grand Canyon West. All the tours that come out of Hualapai.

Dawn: Oh wow.

Mike: The guess is that it's about the same as it is from Tusayan. Very busy, about 50,000 a year. You know, it's really heartening to know that somebody is out there doing interpretation, that someone is bringing this to people's attention because it isn't something you think about. And it isn’t something visitors think about. Sure, they say “we're here to experience the sounds of nature,” but, I think you only appreciate that either after the fact or when it's happening to you. So.

Dawn: Right. And like, these natural soundscapes are just becoming harder and harder to find.

Mike: Yeah, harder to find. There are, I was just reading, in Japan they have, the Hundred Soundscapes of Japan. They have designated places where you can go to hear the intact soundscape.

Dawn: I guess what can visitors and other people listening do? How can they positively impact the soundscape?

Mike: So I think that by focusing on it, you know, even if it's just going to the rim and sure, you get your view of the room, close your eyes and listen. You know, and maybe you'll hear people walking around, but you know, all the other stuff, the sound of the wind, sounds of wildlife. I mean, it's it's not spring, so you won't hear birds quite so much, but, you know, just the sounds around you. Just appreciate that. And if something bothers you, if there is, you know, a, something that the park can do to improve, to make the soundscape more intact. We don't need to have busses idling. We don't need to have, you know, any any sort of other amplified sounds, then write a letter to the park. The park actually, it goes to the superintendent's office, and generally it gets forwarded to whatever division, is, is, is responsible. But, you know, if the Planning Division had to start thinking about how to preserve the natural sounds of the park, that would be a great thing, you know? And it only comes from the public.

Melissa: I have, just thought that last night I was talking to our coworkers. We had Aaron White performing. He's a Native American flute player.

Mike: Yeah, yeah.

Melissa: And, I’m really sad I wasn’t there. Were you there?

Danw: Mmhmm.

Melissa: There's, like he was saying, there was a moment where he was like, I don't get to watch the sunset sometimes. So he turned the whole audience around. And he played towards the canyon.

Mike: Oh, nice.

Melissa: And I'm curious, like, you know, the soundscapes we're talking like natural soundscapes and things like that, but it sounded like that was like a very different soundscape where people were connecting in a very different way by listening and being in that space. And I'm curious, like, how do, like, not just natural sounds, but he sounds that are always in the Canyon or are meant to be in the Canyon, that are human, like, how do those play a role into this science, too? Because I think that's a big aspect of like balancing like natural versus like human. But it's also like, well, humans have been here since time immemorial. So having those intermingle where it's like maybe we're talking more like natural versus like automotive or like.

Mike: Like mechanical. Yeah, the Wilderness Act talks about the difference between, you know, unimproved and, you know, not affected by modern mechanical and mechanized and motorized stuff. Yeah, I think that's exactly right.

Melissa: Yeah. Because like, how do we keep encouraging these like humans sounds that are connected to the Canyon that bring us as humans also closer to one another, but then to space.

Sarah: How cool to hear a flute, those inspirational human sounds that are unaffected or not affected much by mechanical sounds and overflights and just conversation, but, you know, kind of the best of what humanity has to offer as far as music and inspiration and, things that do connect you to nature. Those can also be a really important part of the experience and the soundscape, too. But it is different when it's like, you know, you're still hearing cars and slamming doors and people walking around and honking things versus if you're in a place that can really support that experience with nature and experience with human artistry.

Jesse: The Behind the Scenery podcast is brought to you by the interpretation team at Grand Canyon National Park. A huge thanks to Mike and Sarah for sharing their experiences and perspectives. We gratefully acknowledge the Native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant Native communities who make their homes here today.