THE SOUNDS OF THE PRAIRIE

About our collection.

To the east of Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front lies the High Plains Ecosystem. This area includes some of the world’s largest remaining stretches of intact grasslands. Thousands of migratory birds flock here and their calls at first light create the prairie’s distinctive dawn chorus. Where they exist, such tallgrass prairies are rich in wildlife, but only 1% of these grasslands are still found in the United States (link to: https://www.nps.gov/tapr/learn/nature/a-complex-prairie-ecosystem.htm), making them among the most endangered ecosystems in the world. In 2017, the Acoustic Atlas began documenting the sounds of Montana's prairies through a collaboration with the American Prairie Reserve. Each spring and summer we visit the Reserve to make recordings of species and soundscapes that we place in our online collection. You can search these recordings by species or simply browse the site. Explore the sounds of the prairie. [Link to the sounds] Related: Find out about the sounds of Montana’s four major ecosystems in a story map we co-created with ESRI Story Maps [link to: https://storymaps.esri.com/stories/2018/sounds-of-the-wild-west/]