Pets and Wildlife Predicting Weather and Disasters

It has long been believed by many that animals have a keen sense for earthquakes, storms and impending disasters and can therefore predict their arrival. I myself, as well as I'm sure many of our visitors, do themselves have numerous stories about their pets and their abilities to predict dangerous storms and quakes. I recently read something interesting regarding the December 26 turn of events on the shorelines of South Asia. In spite of the numerous death toll and large path of destruction left behind by the recent Tsunami, scientists have reported a surprising low loss of wildlife. Sri Lankan wildlife officials reported Thursday that the they had not yet found any dead wild animals, including elephants. A photographer also reported seeing no animal corpses as he flew over the wildlife reserve, only active wildlife. An amazing fact when you consider that the flood waters traveled up to 2 miles inland into the wildlife reserve, home to hundreds of wild elephants, monkeys, leopards, jackals and more. One wildlife park hotel was totally destroyed, trees uprooted, automobiles strewn over long distances and people killed, but once again, no dead animals were found, not even a rabbit. This leaves many to ponder the idea that the area wildlife may have sensed the arrival of the impending tidal wave and headed to higher ground accordingly. Potential theories suggest that the animal's acute skills of perception, even a kind of sixth sense may have alerted them to the approaching tsunami. It may even be something as simple as their keen sense of hearing picking up on the sound of the approaching wave while it was still far enough away to give them enough time to head for higher ground. It has also been suggested that the animals may have been able to pick up on resulting vibrations or changing air pressure as well. Many scientists and animal enthusiasts have always suspected that animals had a kind of sixth sense regarding impending storms and natural disasters, but it's always been hard to prove because it isn't something that can really be tested in a lab setting. I've personally seen the phenomena myself. I was in the Whittier earthquake that hit the Los Angeles area in 1987. I shared my bedroom with my beloved African Grey parrot who resided in a large cage at the foot of the bed. About 10 to 30 seconds before I felt the quake, my parrot went crazy, I mean really crazy. Flapping, screaming and jumping about in the cage in a futile attempt to get out. As a matter of fact, his actions were so severe that he broke several wing feathers, including some blood feathers causing him to bleed and putting his health in danger. I also had a friend who lived in the Los Angeles area, whose dogs used to stand under the door frame (the safest area during a quake) just before a quakes arrival. My pyrenees also seems to have a sense for impending severe thunder storms, often pacing, becoming nervous and panting excessively up to 4 to 6 hours before a storms arrival. However, one thing I've learned from my personal experiences with this subject, is that my pets don't always predict impending dangers, sometimes they seem to miss it's coming altogether. This is in line with studies done by one animal behaviorist in California. Her research studied animal behavior prior to several different earthquakes around the world. Her findings suggested that animal prediction of quakes happens sometimes but not always. My conclusion on this mixed bag of animal behavior is that whether or not an animal predicts an impending danger depends upon which signals that specific impending danger sends out. Different occurrences, even within the same category, will send out different signals, hence the reason animals sometimes do and do not pick up on the warning signals. Perhaps, interest in the subject will inspire scientists to study the phenomena further in hopes of someday helping warn people of impending dangers such as tornadoes, tidal waves and earthquakes. Even if animals don't warn us of every impending disaster, we still might save lives on those that they do. If you would like to help with the tsunami relief effort, Google has a list of organizations assisting in the efforts.