animals can sense earthquakes...

[cleofus1]

I've been in zoo's during earthquakes twice in my life...both times the animals starting howling and running in circles right before earthquakes hit...a very weird phenomena.
I just told a co worker this and he seems a little doubtful. Has anyone else experienced this?
When I was in big earthquakes in Los Angeles...right before they hit I could hear dogs howling...seems like too much of a coincidence...but it is scientifically documented?

[yardwork]

1. A lot of animals can sense changes in atmospheric pressure

Birds navigate using the earth's magnetic fields. I can believe that some animals could sense an earthquake before humans feel it. The warning would be very short, though.

[cleofus1]

3. i was in tokyo at the zoo...1980

The animals started to howl. The tapir we were watching began to urinate and squeal...it started bashing it's head against a wall. And then...big earthquake! after the earth stopped shaking...dead quiet...very eerie...

[ananda]

8. Were many animals lost?

Interesting topic.

Were many animals lost in this latest Indian Ocean disaster?

Some people from the disaster areas are reporting amazement that more animals weren't killed. Also, people from all over the world are providing their own anecdotal stories of how their animals acted before earthquakes and many were very strange. Anyhow... I did some searching and found these articles. -- Sue

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=Quake%20Sri%20Lanka%20Animals

Experts: Tsunami kills few animals

By GEMUNU AMARASINGHE
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

YALA NATIONAL PARK, Sri Lanka -- Wildlife officials in Sri Lanka expressed surprise Wednesday that they found no evidence of large-scale animal deaths from the weekend's massive tsunami - indicating that animals may have sensed the wave coming and fled to higher ground.

An Associated Press photographer who flew over Sri Lanka's Yala National Park in an air force helicopter saw abundant wildlife, including elephants, buffalo, deer, and not a single animal corpse.

http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_article.asp?id=11009&cid=5&cname=Asia%20&%20Pacific

Animals may have fled tsunami
A Reuters report notes that in Sri Lanka, where tens of thousands lost their lives to the Boxing Day tsunami, animals appear to have fled inland before the waves struck.

As governments gear up to spend fortunes on tsunami warning systems, the mystery cannot afford to be overlooked.

http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/12-29-04.asp

Planetary alignment can devastate the world in next few months - Earth shaking Russian Volcano in Kamchatka erupts with massive earthquake
Sudhir Chadda, Special Correspondent
December 29, 2004

According to some sources, whales have come on the shore in various countries including Australia and natives are saying that those are signs of tremendous under water upheaval.
According to some Indian scientists, Venus, moon and Jupiter is pulling earth away from the Sun in the same one line. The linear momentum can devastate the world in the next few months.

Animal zoo supervisors are reporting from various part of the world that animals are behaving strangely all around the world for the last few months.

In Sri Lanka where more than 14,000 people have died and the animal zoo had a direct hit from the Tsunami, not a single animal has died or is injured. They all ran to higher ground before the Tsunami came. Tsunamis have electromagnetic waves associated that the animals can sense. That may have saved them.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2004/12/29/latest/20426Tsunamiki&sec=latest

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka: As Sri Lanka's human death toll surged, wildlife officials expressed surprise Wednesday that they found no evidence of large-scale deaths among animals from the weekend's massive tsunami.

"This is very interesting. I am finding bodies of humans, but I have yet to see a dead animal,'' said Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne, whose Jetwing Eco Holidays runs a hotel in the Yala National Park.

The huge waves Sunday washed floodwaters inland into Yala, Sri Lanka's largest wildlife reserve, but the animals apparently were not harmed and may have sought out high ground, Wijeyeratne said.

"Maybe what we think is true, that animals have a sixth sense,'' Wijeyeratne said.

[tuvor]

15. See post #14 n/t

[SheepyMcSheepster]

2. check this link

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/11/1111_031111_earthquakeanimals.html

[Ian David]

4. The short answer is, "no."

[benburch]

10. The short answer is "yes".

There are reliable observations of this effect going back to antiquity.

[Ian David]

11. There are also "reliable obervations" of angels and demons

[cleofus1]

12. no there are not....

there are no reliable observations of these phenonema...unless you consider Art Bell reliable...angels and demons....BAH!

[Forkboy]

5. That's a cool story

Thanks!

[cleofus1]

6. from personal experience I believe that they do....

from the link provided it sounds like the jury is still out.

[izzie]

7. I lived in Alaska and they have a lot of EQ

My dog and cat always came and sat real near to me. AFTER we felt the thing.

[Make7]

9. It has to do with how earthquakes travel through the ground.

"the number of seconds between the P and S wave times 5 is approximately the distance in miles to the earthquake."

"Many animals can hear and feel P waves but humans can not. This is why it is thought that animals can sense when an earthquake is coming. The animals can feel the beginning of the earthquake that the less sensitive humans do not feel."

Speed of Sound through the Earth

_____________________________

So animals may notice something (P waves) a number of seconds before most people will feel anything (S waves), depending on the distance to the earthquake. Interesting.

-Make7

[soup]

13. fwiw - A blip from the BBC's 'have your say'

My 3 dogs acted strangely shortly before 9 am local time - trying to lure me out of our house... when I followed them, I saw the pool making waves and overflowing. I didn't feel any movements. But the animals obviously did. Until reading first news, my family thought I'm gone bonkers for telling "my morning story".
Madelaine Jantos, Kuala Lumpur, Malausia
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/4126255.stm

[tuvor]

14. Some more anecdotal evidence in favour of animals "knowing"

Where Are All the Dead Animals? Sri Lanka Asks

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lankan wildlife officials are stunned -- the worst tsunami in memory has killed around 22,000 people along the Indian Ocean island's coast, but they can't find any dead animals.

Giant waves washed floodwaters up to 2 miles inland at Yala National Park in the ravaged southeast, Sri Lanka's biggest wildlife reserve and home to hundreds of wild elephants and several leopards.

"The strange thing is we haven't recorded any dead animals," H.D. Ratnayake, deputy director of the national Wildlife Department, told Reuters Wednesday.

"No elephants are dead, not even a dead hare or rabbit," he added. "I think animals can sense disaster. They have a sixth sense. They know when things are happening."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&e=15&u=/nm/quake_lanka_wildlife_dc

[radwriter0555]

16. My dog blue came and told me about the last decent EQ we were

about to have, in late 99 I think it was.

She came in to my bedroom and started chattering at me, and got VERY anxious, and started growling.

[cleofus1]

17. here's something interesting...

http://www.zephryus.demon.co.uk/geography/resources/earth/pred.html

"The Chinese have claimed considerable success with a totally different approach to the problem. It has long been known that animals, birds and insects seem to change their behaviour patterns before an earthquake.
In December 1974 Chinese scientists began to receive reports of snakes coming out of hibernation and freezing to death on the cold ground. This activity was followed by a series of minor tremors at the end of the month.

During January 1975 they received even more reports of strange animal behaviour. Much of this concerned larger animals such as cattle and horses which had become restless, refused to enter buildings or seemed frightened for no obvious reason.

In February that year a major earthquake struck. The epicentre was in Haicheng, the area from which most of the animal reports had been received."

It is known that some animals are very sensitive to sound, temperature, touch, light intensity and even magnetic fields, so it is perfectly possible that they can indeed detect the seismic activity which precedes an earthquake. Perhaps they are sensitive to the electrical and magnetic disturbances which form the basis of the Dilatancy theory .

[LWolf]

18. I don't know what is scientifically documented.

But having lived for 37 years in earthquake country (southern california) with animals, I can say that they exhibit anxiety before a quake. I've seen my cats bolt and "hide," and the dogs whine. In my experiences, horses have a stronger reaction than dogs or cats.

About 18 months ago, I was "ground driving" my filly out on an old track. The ranch I keep her at is in a narrow valley directly on top of the San Andreas. We were walking peacefully along when she suddenly "froze." I looked around, saw nothing, and asked her to move on. She refused. I asked again; this was unusual behavior for her. She turned her head, looked at me, and lay down in the middle of the track. At that moment, a flock of birds burst out of the underbrush to my left and 3 horses in a pasture to my right bolted. I waited a minute, and asked her to get up. She got up, shook herself, and walked on. I heard about the quake on the radio on the way home. At the time we were out there on the track, a small quake struck on the other side of the mountains, about 50 miles away. Too small for humans to notice, but obvious to the animals. Of course, I can't say whether her refusal happened "before" or "during," because I couldn't feel anything.

Horses also react to changes in barometric pressure, if you are paying attention.

[liberalmuse]

19. Before a small earthquake hit in Vegas...

a few years ago, my birds went nuts and my dog started barking like crazy. It's really nice to have about 5 seconds warning.

It's not a coincidence, nor is it surprising. Animal's senses are finely honed. My dog lives in a world much different from my own because of her amazing sense of smell and hearing. Dogs supposedly can be trained to detect cancer in the human body. Animals rock, don't they?

[4_TN_TITANS]

20. Not just animals

People can sense them as well. We had the first earthquake I've ever felt in TN last year. It hit about four in the morning and a few minutes before my daughter woke us up, which she never does. I got up and went to the bathroom and was sitting on the pot, wondering what it was that I was hearing/sensing, when the whole house started shaking. We never feel earthquakes here and it was a completely unnerving experience.

I'm sure that me and my family didn't sense it as soon as animals would, but we could tell something wasn't right, right before it hit.

[MadHound]

21. Yes some animals do

I've been through two small jolts of the New Madrid fault that runs through southern Missouri. The first time was as a child, and our dog started whining and scratching to get out almost a minute before the quake started shaking, while our cat fled and hid. The second quake, same fault, I was out in the field when the cows and horses started sounding off and were laying down, very agitated, very vocal. The birds in the woods shot up as a flock, calling loudly. Again, about a minute later the shock wave hit.

[spinbaby]

22. Experts: Tsunami Kills Few Animals

Wed Dec 29, 6:18 AM ET

 World - AP Asia

By GEMUNU AMARASINGHE, Associated Press Writer

YALA NATIONAL PARK, Sri Lanka - Wildlife officials in Sri Lanka expressed surprise Wednesday that they found no evidence of large-scale animal deaths from the weekend's massive tsunami — indicating that animals may have sensed the wave coming and fled to higher ground.

An Associated Press photographer who flew over Sri Lanka's Yala National Park in an air force helicopter saw abundant wildlife, including elephants, buffalo, deer, and not a single animal corpse.

Floodwaters from the tsunami swept into the park, uprooting trees and toppling cars onto their roofs — one red car even ended up on top of a huge tree — but the animals apparently were not harmed and may have sought out high ground, said Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne, whose Jetwing Eco Holidays ran a hotel in the park.

"This is very interesting. I am finding bodies of humans, but I have yet to see a dead animal," said Wijeyeratne, whose hotel in the park was totally destroyed in Sunday's tidal surge.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=516&e=2&u=/ap/quake_sri_lanka_animals