Athemoral is a production of iHeart 3D audio.

For full exposure, listen with headphones. This is the sound of the American bison.

A bull wades across stream to feed on grass.

A thunderstorm rolls in.

It's the kind of thing that must happen all the time. But this time, someone was there, with a backpack full of audio gear.

How many recordings do you think you've made total?

Oh my gosh.

7,500, 10,000, something like that maybe.

It's a pretty big number.

I mean, I just recorded 150 hours working along

the mississippi river for two and a half months that's a lot of recordings my name is jacobb i am a

research associate at colorado state university working for the sound and light ecology team

someone just asks you what you do. What's the, you know, real quick pitch?

I just laugh and be like, uh, I usually turn to someone who knows me and say,

why don't you describe it? Um, but I mean, essentially I record the sounds of wilderness

to bring to people to familiarize them with these places so that they care about it.

And once they care about it, conservation falls into place that much easier.

That's what I say.

In other words, Jacob takes epic backpacking trips out into some of the wildest places on the planet

to generate a record what those places sound like.

This sounds like my dream job.

Is that a common job?

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