The Nature Sounds Archive is mostly a collection animal voices recorded in the wild. Also included here are soundscapes from unique locations, some photography and artistic renderings of wild things and places.
The archive was founded in 1985 at Texas A&M University-College Station by Robert Benson, then a freshly minted Assistant Professor, who grew turning over fallen logs and chasing frogs in South Texas.
The majority of these materials were collected over the nest few decades in the United States, Europe, Mexico, Belize, Peru, and the Islands in the Caribbean. Sounds of whales and dolphins were recorded in the Gulf of America and in the waters of the Amazon River Basin.
Other contributions to the collection were added by other recordists, including a number of Dr. Benson’s graduate students.
The collection was moved to Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi in1997, after which much of the student-recordings were collected. Several projects involving fish and shrimp sounds were captured as part of the Corpus Christi work.
Dr. Benson retired from the TAMU-system in 2011, and brought the sound collection to Beeville, Texas. It is now house at the Duryea Gallery in Beeville.