Study title

This dataset comprises data gathered during a number of different work packages in the Listening to the Zoo project.The context of the research Every year 700 million people visit zoological gardens worldwide, with more than 30 million of these visits taking place in the UK. Apart from the significant economic role they play as tourist attractions, many zoos also aim to educate their visitors about biodiversity, exposing them to species they would not otherwise have the opportunity to encounter directly and providing information about these species. As part of their educational role, many zoos offer the public opportunities to learn about and engage with conservation and environmental protection projects. Zoos are usually approached as places where animals are, first and foremost, seen. This project, however, aims to transform the way we think about zoos by attending closely to an aspect of these institutions that has previously been neglected or overlooked: their sounds or 'soundscapes'. Its aims and objectives Through close collaboration with two project partner zoos in the UK, this project seeks to trial innovative sound research methodologies to generate detailed knowledge about how sounds are woven into the experience of zoos for visitors, staff, people who live near zoos and for zoo animals themselves. It sets out to explore how listening, and attending to different kinds and qualities of sound can promote new forms of awareness of human and animal behaviour in the zoo context. The project sets out to change the mode in which zoo visitors engage with species on display, prompting the development of an 'acoustic mindfulness' that complicates, challenges and augments a visually-orientated approach to animals in the zoo. It also aims to explore whether silent listening (where groups of volunteers visit the zoo and listen whilst being silent) can have transformative effects, prompting people to be more sensitive to how, for instance, anthropogenic noise...