The sound of crab “flutes” crackles through the audience, bouncing off folding chairs and reverberating through Sitka’s community center.
Matthew Burtner, the ecoacoustician standing on Sitka town hall's dimly lit stage, explains over the microphone that these flutes are a sonic indicator of a symbiotic relationship between crabs and the seagrasses they inhabit — by creating burrows in the mud, crabs assist the grasses in accumulating important nutrients. Burtner found that those burrows also tend to “whistle” or crackle in a melodious way, so that when he overlays these sonic data with the sound of his saxophone, he’s able to create a memorable auditory learning experience.
Burtner’s performance kicked off the 27th annual Sitka WhaleFest — a weekend full of art and science geared towards increasing public understanding of the marine world. This year’s theme was “Sound Science: Voices from the Ocean.”
Scientists, students, and artists from across the state and the country gathered in downtown Sitka to celebrate marine life. Scientists shared their “sound” science research in a variety of ways: using sound waves for communication within the ocean and to study underwater ecosystems, producing sonic representations of learnings, and connecting to current research in Sitka’s very own Sitka Sound.
Sitka Seafood Market joined in as a donor for the event with representatives attending symposium talks and events where they learned about what is happening below the waves and celebrated the importance of sound science in our evolving world.
Saturday culminated in a Sitka Seafood Market Marine Mingle event that featured salmon and sablefish (black cod) from our trusted partner Seafood Producer Cooperative (SPC) and was followed by marine-themed trivia.
