You've heard the question before. "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" But here's something else to consider: how come nobody ever asks what the trees can hear?


The new question we're dealing with is this: can you pick a spot in the US where you can escape from any and all ambient human noise? According to a recent story by NPR's Amelia Templeton, you may have a harder time with this challenge than you think:



Setting up temporary recording stations in 20 different locations, technicians say that there's virtually no place left in America that's untouched by ambient human noise - and that this may be stressful to wildlife.

According to Templeton, the project at Crater Lake is part of a larger effort by the national park service to document the extent of human-caused noise — a problem which, like climate change, "the national parks can't just fence out."


Read more about the impact of human noise pollution on wildlife at NPR