Despite limited information in the article, it does identify the researcher in bioacoustics, and attaches him to an American institution of (more or less) learning. A topic so lame as this would have to be funded by the government (remember the flow rate of ketchup studies?)
Q.E.D. Government Grants
Hoo hoo ... better still: he did the work during his sabbatical year. So he was getting paid to not work in a foreign country.
(from a notice describing a lecture he gave on his return:
Sheep, Stress and Satellites
How I spent my sabbatical year in the west of Ireland as a visiting
scientist with Teagasc, the Irish agricultural research and education
agency. First, I'll talk about my work on sheep vocalization,
looking for acoustic correlates of behavioral and physiological
stress. Next I'll report on a study of sheep grazing behavior and
its impact on the (achingly beautiful) environment of the Connemara
mountains, using data from animals collared with GPS tracking devices
-- and from many, many long hours of observation while hiking on
mist-covered hills and treacherous quaking bogs.
The Hampshire College
press release elaborates a bit further but doesn't provide much in the way of additional detail on his funding source.