Autonomous Recorder

USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station Autonomous Recorder

This purchase directly supports mission-critical work under the Northwest Forest Plan Effectiveness Monitoring Program, which is essential to meeting statutory requirements under the National Forest Management Act (NFMA), the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Passive acoustic monitoring using autonomous recording units (ARUs) enables efficient, defensible tracking of species presence and trends across large spatial and temporal scales. This information is foundational to evaluating the effects of forest management actions, including timber harvest and wildfire risk reduction projects, as mandated by law and agency policy. The monitoring program has been repeatedly recognized as critical for informing adaptive management, fulfilling legal obligations, and enabling the continued pace and scale of active forest restoration work across federal lands in the Pacific Northwest.

Each season we collect up to approximately 2 million hours of sound data using autonomous sound recording units. The ARUs we use in the field must be rugged, weatherproof, passive recording devices that are capable of being programmed with sunrise, sunset, and intermittent recording times that can record for several months when left in the field. The units must be able to withstand cold, rainy, and hot weather conditions and must record with high quality ( ≥78 dB signal-to-noise ratio) within the range of vocal songbirds and terrestrial mammals between 100-96000 Hz. There are very few terrestrial autonomous recording units available on the market that can be programmed and left out in the field to record for several months at a time.

We will need 313 Units

Please review the "Autonomous Recorder Specifications" attachment for the exact specifications needed.

Delivery address:

PNW Forestry Sciences Laboratory

3200 SW Jefferson Way

Corvallis OR 97331

United States