Save the Vaquita!

soundscapes On-site & Online June 7th

Spirit of the Vaquita allows the vaquita porpoise to speak directly to the listener. Although the vaquita’s voice is not audible to the human ear, scientists are able to record the voice of the vaquita porpoise through a method known as passive acoustic monitoring (PAM). The recordings are processed using software that makes the inaudible voice of the vaquita sound like “clicks.” Jonathan Saxon added filters to the clicks. In “Spirit of the Vaquita,” the filtered voice (“vaquita clicks”) sound like waves or small explosions. “Spirit of the Vaquita” includes analog synthesizer, guitar, kalimba, electronic effects, and the filtered field recordings of the vaquita.

earmaginations On-site & Online June 7th

Save the Vaquita!
The vaquita porpoise is the world’s most critically endangered marine mammal. Even though the voice of the vaquita porpoise is inaudible to human ears, as the world’s most critically endangered marine mammal they cry out for your help to avoid extinction. Currently, there are approximately only 10 vaquita left in existence. Gill nets from illegal fishing are the cause of the vaquita’s decline. Save the Vaquita! is a multimedia project where musicians, visual artists, and scientists collaborate to raise awareness of the plight of the vaquita. Also known as the desert porpoise, the vaquita’s only habitat is in the Gulf of California, which is situated between the Mexican states of Baja California and Sonora, and adjacent to the Sonoran Desert. See https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/vaquita for more info.