Chapter 22 Exercises: Birdsong Monitoring and Environmental Surveillance

Exercise 22.1 — The BirdNET Experience

Type: Individual / Experiential Difficulty: Introductory Estimated time: 30–45 minutes (plus optional ongoing observation)

Instructions:

Download the BirdNET app (available free on iOS and Android) or use the BirdNET Analyzer web interface (birdnet-analyzer.org). Then:

Part A: Go to an outdoor location with bird activity — a campus green space, a park, or any area where birds are present. Make three audio recordings of at least 30 seconds each. Record the following for each: - Location (general description — do not share GPS coordinates publicly) - Date and time - General environmental conditions (urban, suburban, woodland, open field, etc.) - BirdNET's species identifications and confidence scores - Your own assessment: does the identification seem plausible for your location?

Part B: Listen to your raw recordings. What else is present besides bird sound? Traffic? Conversation? Music? Construction? Note everything you hear.

Written reflection (300 words): Based on this exercise, what does a PAM system in your campus or neighborhood actually capture? How much of the audio content is bird-related? What is the ratio of target data (bird vocalizations) to incidental data (everything else)? What are the implications of the incidental data being stored on a server?

Exercise 22.2 — Mapping the Listening Infrastructure

Type: Individual or Pairs / Research and Spatial Analysis Difficulty: Intermediate Estimated time: 60–90 minutes

Instructions:

Conduct a survey of acoustic monitoring infrastructure in your campus area or immediate neighborhood. Look for: - University or institutional research monitoring equipment on trees or buildings - ShotSpotter or similar sensors (often small devices on light poles with discrete housings) - Weather monitoring stations - Traffic monitoring equipment - Smart streetlight infrastructure with sensors

For each device you identify: 1. Photograph it (exterior, in a public location — no trespassing) 2. Note its location using a simple map or Google Maps screenshot 3. Research who operates it (check your institution's facilities department, local government websites, or FOIA/public records requests if needed) 4. Note what data it appears to collect and what policy governs that data

Written analysis (400 words): Create a brief "surveillance map" of your immediate environment. What surprised you? Were there devices you walked past regularly without noticing? What does the distribution of monitoring equipment tell you about which spaces are treated as requiring surveillance and which are not?

Exercise 22.3 — Comparative Ethics: Wildlife vs. Human Acoustic Monitoring

Type: Small group / Structured debate Difficulty: Conceptual Estimated time: 45 minutes

Instructions:

Divide into groups of 4. Two members defend Position A, two defend Position B.

Position A: "Passive acoustic monitoring of wildlife habitats is ethically straightforward and should face no restriction beyond standard research ethics review. The subjects (animals) cannot consent, and the monitoring serves genuine conservation value."

Position B: "Any acoustic monitoring system that may capture human voices in its field of recording must meet the same consent and data governance standards as any other human surveillance system, regardless of the system's primary purpose."

Each side has 5 minutes to develop their argument, then 5 minutes to present, then 5 minutes of cross-examination, then 5 minutes for rebuttal.

Post-debate reflection (individual, 200 words): Which argument do you find more persuasive, and why? Is there a position that incorporates the strongest elements of both? What specific governance mechanism would you propose to address the genuine tension between environmental monitoring value and privacy risk?

Exercise 22.4 — The ShotSpotter Analysis

Type: Individual / Policy Analysis Difficulty: Intermediate to Advanced Estimated time: 75 minutes

Instructions:

Research the ShotSpotter controversy using at least three of the following sources (all publicly available): - The MacArthur Justice Center's 2021 Chicago analysis: "ShotSpotter: Unreliable Evidence, Racially Biased" - The Motherboard/Vice investigation: "How ShotSpotter Changed a Gunshot Alert to Help Prosecutors" (2021) - The company's own response and technical documentation (available at soundthinking.com) - Academic analyses of ShotSpotter performance in peer-reviewed journals - Local newspaper coverage from a city where ShotSpotter is deployed (search "[city name] ShotSpotter controversy")

Analysis (600 words): Write a structured analysis addressing: 1. What does the evidence show about ShotSpotter's accuracy? 2. Who bears the cost of false positive alerts, and who benefits when the system functions correctly? 3. The company argues that many genuine gunshots go unreported and leave no physical evidence — that the absence of evidence of a shooting doesn't mean a shooting didn't occur. Evaluate this argument. Is it methodologically sound? Is it self-serving? Is it both? 4. If you were advising a city council on whether to renew a ShotSpotter contract, what additional evidence would you want, and from whom? 5. At what point, if any, would you recommend discontinuing the technology?

Exercise 22.5 — Function Creep and Acoustic Infrastructure

Type: Written essay Difficulty: Advanced Estimated time: 60–90 minutes

Instructions:

The chapter argues that ShotSpotter is an instance of function creep — acoustic monitoring technology originally developed for environmental science applied to urban law enforcement. Write a 700-word essay that:

  1. Defines function creep and explains why it is a general feature of surveillance infrastructure (not just acoustic technology)
  2. Traces the specific technological continuity from bird acoustic monitoring to ShotSpotter — what elements are shared?
  3. Evaluates whether function creep is always concerning or whether some instances of it are beneficial (use at least one example from either this chapter or Chapter 21 of potentially beneficial function creep)
  4. Proposes a governance mechanism — specific and implementable — that would enable beneficial applications of environmental monitoring technology while creating meaningful barriers against problematic human surveillance applications. Be realistic: acknowledge the difficulties of implementing your proposal.

Your essay should demonstrate engagement with the chapter's argument, but you are encouraged to challenge, extend, or complicate it with your own analysis.

Exercise 22.6 — Citizen Science and Surveillance: The eBird Question

Type: Individual / Reflective Difficulty: Introductory to Intermediate Estimated time: 30 minutes

Instructions:

The chapter characterizes eBird as a distributed surveillance network — not pejoratively, but structurally. Many eBird participants would object to this characterization. Using the following questions, write a 300-word response that takes the eBird community's perspective seriously while maintaining analytical rigor.

  1. In what ways is eBird similar to surveillance systems that we find problematic?
  2. In what ways is it fundamentally different? (Focus on the power relationship, the nature of the subject, and the uses of the data)
  3. The chapter argues that the methodological toolkit of eBird is "directly transferable to human surveillance." Evaluate this claim. What would actually need to change for eBird's toolkit to become a tool of human surveillance? Is that change primarily technical, institutional, or cultural?
  4. Does calling eBird a "surveillance network" illuminate something true about its structure, or does it obscure more than it reveals by applying a loaded term to a benign activity? Can both be true simultaneously?