There’s a sound I remember from childhood that I haven’t heard in years. It’s the chorus of spring peepers, small frogs that would fill the wetlands near my grandmother’s house with their high, chirping calls. On warm April evenings, the sound was so loud you could hear it from inside the house. It was the sound of spring arriving, as reliable as the crocuses pushing through the last patches of snow.
I thought about those peepers recently when I visited that same area. The wetlands are still there, technically. But they’re smaller now, hemmed in by development. And the sound is different. Thinner. Quieter. Some springs, I don’t hear the peepers at all.
This is what loss sounds like. Not dramatic or sudden, but gradual. A fading, a thinning, a silence where there used to be abundance. And it’s happening everywhere.
We talk a lot about what we can see disappearing. Glaciers melting, forests shrinking, species going extinct. But we rarely talk about what we’re losing from our soundscapes. The auditory world is changing, and with it, we’re losing sounds that have defined places and cultures for generations. We’re losing our auditory heritage.
What Is Auditory Heritage?
Think of auditory heritage as the collection of sounds that define a place and a time. It includes natural sounds: the specific birds that live in your region, the way wind sounds in local vegetation, the rhythm of seasonal rains. It includes cultural sounds: church bells, market vendors, traditional music, the specific accent and language of a community. And it includes the everyday sounds of human activity: tools, transportation, work, and play.
These sounds are as much a part of our heritage as buildings or artifacts. They shape our sense of place and identity. They connect us to history and to each other. But unlike buildings, which we can photograph and preserve, sounds are ephemeral. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.
What Are We Losing?
The list is longer than you might think. We’re losing animal sounds as species decline. The United Nations estimates that one million species are at risk of extinction, and each one has its own acoustic signature. When a species disappears, its voice disappears with it. We lose not just the animal itself but the soundscape it helped create.
We’re losing natural soundscapes to noise pollution. Wilderness areas that were once quiet are now filled with the sound of aircraft, road traffic, and industrial activity. Studies have shown that noise pollution affects two-thirds of protected areas in the United States. Animals change their behavior in response, sometimes abandoning habitats entirely. And humans lose access to the quiet and natural sounds that support mental and physical well-being.
We’re losing the sounds of traditional practices. Craft sounds: the rhythm of a blacksmith’s hammer, the clatter of a weaver’s loom, the specific knock of a cooper shaping a barrel. Agricultural sounds: hand tools, animal-powered plows, the calls farmers use to communicate with livestock. These sounds are disappearing as traditional practices are replaced by modern technology.
We’re losing languages and the sounds they carry. Linguists estimate that a language disappears every two weeks. With each language goes a unique way of describing the world, including its sounds. Indigenous languages often have rich vocabularies for natural sounds that don’t exist in dominant languages. When these languages disappear, we lose not just words but entire ways of listening and understanding.
We’re losing the quiet itself. Silence, or relative quiet, used to be common. Now it’s a rare commodity. Gordon Hempton, an acoustic ecologist, has documented the disappearance of naturally quiet places in the United States. He estimates that there are fewer than a dozen places left where you can experience 15 minutes of natural quiet without human-caused noise intrusion.
Why Does It Matter?
You might wonder why this matters. Sounds come and go. New sounds replace old ones. Isn’t that just progress?
But what we’re losing isn’t just nostalgic background noise. These sounds serve functions. Natural soundscapes provide information about ecosystem health. The presence or absence of certain sounds tells us about biodiversity, habitat quality, and environmental changes. When we lose these sounds, we lose an important monitoring tool.
Soundscapes also affect well-being. Research shows that exposure to natural sounds reduces stress, improves mood, and enhances cognitive function. Conversely, chronic noise exposure is linked to cardiovascular disease, sleep disruption, and mental health problems. As we lose natural and peaceful soundscapes, we lose environments that support health.
There’s also a cultural dimension. Sounds connect us to place and history. They’re part of how we understand who we are and where we come from. When my grandmother talks about her childhood, she doesn’t just describe what she saw. She describes what she heard: the train whistle that marked the time, the vendor calls in the market, the specific church bells that rang for different occasions. These sounds were the texture of her world. Losing them means losing a part of that story.
What Can We Do?
Preserving auditory heritage requires both documentation and action. On the documentation side, there are efforts underway to record and archive sounds before they disappear. Organizations like the Cornell Lab of Ornithology maintain sound libraries of bird calls. The British Library has a sound archive that includes everything from dialect recordings to disappearing mechanical sounds. These archives are valuable, but they’re not enough. A recording captures the sound, but not the experience of hearing it in context, in the place where it belongs.
We also need to actively protect and restore soundscapes. This means addressing noise pollution through better urban planning, quieter technologies, and protected quiet zones. It means preserving habitats so that the animals that create natural soundscapes have places to live. It means supporting traditional practices and the communities that maintain them.
On a personal level, we can start by paying attention. Notice the sounds in your own environment. What’s present? What’s changed? What might be at risk? Document what you hear. Make recordings, keep a sound journal, share your observations. This attention is the first step toward preservation.
We can also advocate for sound-conscious policies in our communities. Support green spaces and wildlife corridors. Advocate for noise ordinances that protect residential areas. Push for quieter public transportation and infrastructure. These actions help ensure that future generations will have access to diverse, healthy soundscapes.
And we can share our sonic heritage. Talk about the sounds you remember, the sounds that matter to you, the sounds you hope will persist. Teach children to listen, to notice, to appreciate. This intergenerational knowledge is how heritage survives.
Listening Forward
The sounds we’re losing aren’t just artifacts of the past. They’re part of living systems and cultures that continue to evolve. Preservation doesn’t mean freezing everything in place. It means maintaining diversity and richness, ensuring that the soundscapes of the future aren’t impoverished versions of what came before.
It also means being thoughtful about what new sounds we introduce. Not all change is loss. Some new sounds enhance our environments. But we should be intentional about the sonic world we’re creating, rather than letting it happen by accident.
The spring peepers near my grandmother’s house might be quieter now, but they’re still there. The wetland still exists. With attention and care, it could be restored. The chorus could grow louder again. That’s the hope that preservation offers: not just holding on to what remains, but actively working to restore what’s been lost and protect what’s at risk.
Our auditory heritage is a gift from the past and a responsibility to the future. It’s up to us to listen, to value what we hear, and to ensure that the sounds that matter don’t fade into silence.