That effort, he thinks, sabotages the innate ability to hear nature. Alligators and crocodiles produce very low frequency roars and rumbles, some of which lie below the range of human hearing. A troop of ring-tailed lemurs call, yodel and shriek as they establish territory and encounter another group of lemurs in southern Madagascar. Emperor penguins can dive to depths of 1,500 feet. Differences in calls help distinguish males from females.
Walruses haul out in groups of thousands during the summer months at Round Island, Alaska.
Their underwater sounds include teeth clacking and a bell or gonging sound. That's the limit of our experience. In reality, Krause, who has spent 30 years recording in nature and now runs the natural-sound business Wild Sanctuary , admits that individual birds may have inspired Western composers, as Baptista contended. But Krause maintains that the only music really inspired by nature is made by those rare cultures that remain in intimate contact with nature. The cry comes from the bobe, a spirit incarnated by a tribal member.