Can Animals Predict Natural Disasters?

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Do animals have a sixth sense that can detect earthquakes and tsunamis? Or do they just make better use of their other senses than humans?

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http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/storms/animals-predict-weather.htm

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Have you heard about how pets sometimes go missing just before an earthquake hits? Or how about in 2004, when a tsunami hit southeast Asia and killed more than 200,000 people… but almost no wild animals? Did you know that dogs, elephants, antelopes, bats and even flamingos fled the scene before the wave hit?

Many people assume it’s because animals are more attuned to their environment than we are. Others, like the United States Geological Survey agency say there’s no connection between animal behavior and natural disasters. But if there were, wouldn’t it warrant a closer look?

Now the majority of researchers looking into this aren’t claiming animals have a sixth sense or anything supernatural going on. What they think is that animals make greater use of their senses than we do. Using these, they react to environmental signals that we stupid humans don’t even notice.

Most likely, animals can hear sounds that we can’t, especially the infrasonic, low-pitched vibrations made by earthquakes, storms, volcanoes, avalanches and oceans. So with their greater spectrum of hearing, it makes sense that animals would perceive these before us as unsettling. If you heard a deep, rumbling sound coming at you from a wide angle, what would you do? Hang out making sandwiches? Or run for your life?

One study that supports this infrasonic hearing theory happened when Stanley Coren was studying whether dogs suffered from seasonal affective disorder. One day many of his 193 test dogs suddenly became agitated. Coren couldn’t figure out what was going on until he noticed that a day later an earthquake struck nearby at a 6.8 on the richter scale.

Here’s where it gets crazy. After reviewing the results, Coren found that 14 of the animals had hearing impairments and these were the dogs that didn’t become anxious before the earthquake.

Looking further he noticed that dogs with floppy ears were less likely to be agitated than those with perky, open ears. So it looks like the strength of their sense of hearing was what attuned the dogs to the earthquake’s low tones.

Another theory is that through their sense of touch, animals can feel vibrations through the ground or sense shifts in air or water pressure. Hurricanes are known to decrease such pressures.

And scientists have observed that sharks change their behavior when storms cause pressure drops, swimming to deeper waters where they’ll be protected. Birds and insects also seek cover when this happens.

Now that you’ve heard the theories, do you think we should make safety decisions based on the behavior of our local animals? China did in 1975, when they evacuated a city before an earthquake hit after its animals showed signs of high anxiety. It’s estimated they saved thousands of lives.

SOURCES:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/storms/animals-predict-weather.htm

http://mentalfloss.com/article/50586/can-animals-really-anticipate-natural-disasters

Episodes

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

Can Your Pet Sense Disasters?

Kaplan M. Beastly powers. New Scientist [serial online]. February 17, 2007;193(2591):34. Available from: Publisher Provided Full Text Searching File, Ipswich, MA. Accessed November 10, 2014.

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45 Comments

  1. It must be that nonhuman animals are "images of God." They are more spiritually connected to the living world that humans–with all their technology, hubris, and speciesist bigotry–overlook. Humans are like the neediest welfare recipients, cripples without other animals. And we murder them relentlessly and remorselessly for any reason whatsoever that suits us and makes us feel "superior."

  2. Years ago John A. Livingston, author of The Fallacy of Wildlife Conservation and One Cosmic Instant: Man's Fleeting Supremacy, told me, "Nowadays most of us live in cities. That means most of us live in an insulated cell, completely cut off from any kind of sensory information or sensory experience that is not of our own manufacture. Everything we see, hear, taste, smell, touch, is a human artifact. All the sensory information we receive is fabricated, and most of it is mediated by machines. I think the only thing that makes it bearable is the fact that our sensory capacities are so terribly diminished–just as they are in all domesticates–that we no longer know what we're missing. The wild animal is receiving information for all of the senses, from an uncountable number of sources, every moment of its life. We get it from one only–ourselves. It's like doing solitary in an echo chamber. People doing solitary do strange things. And the common experience of victims of sensory deprivation is hallucination. I believe that our received cultural wisdom, our anthropocentric beliefs and ideologies, can easily be seen as institutionalized hallucinations."

  3. LOL — Animals do have a 6th sense — they have no ego like humans. Animals never think "I" — they live in the moment, don't think about the past or the future – they are in the MOMENT. They are one with the Cosmos this is how sense what is coming. This is what I hate about science – everything is seen only through a material world. WE HAVE MORE THAN A MATERIAL WORLD.

  4. Yes fun fact I learned birds can sense a rainstorm before it happens if you see birds flying low under the treelined that means a bad storm is coming if they are above the trees that means it's gonna be a nice day.

  5. I am sure something is going on right now. The birds and squirrels have gone missing from my yard and they have been here everyday faithfully all spring and summer long. Also less insects and the ducks and other water foul have left off of our ponds? I live in Delaware???

  6. Mine was back in 2015 on the last day of the school year it was morning my dog try to warn me there was a flood coming but my mom just ignore the dog till she woke up and saw water all over the place she thought it was the dog but till she walked all over the house and saw water everywhere

  7. My friend cat started about 2 months acting very strangely when he toked her outside she just stooped in the middle of the road after 2 months of this strangely act a 6.4 hit albania

  8. My dog has been acting very strange today . He has been getting up high on the furniture. Like the arm of the couch. He is a big husky and has never acted this way before. My husband and I are very concerned. So much so we are letting him sleep with us tonight. And that something we don’t do. He just seems worried. I guess we will know soon. We are on the new Madrid fault line. This is the day after California had the 7.1. LA

  9. My animals never really freak out before storms but my dogs have been just randomly barking all night and it's been thundering and stuff as usual in spring but my cats have been on edge all night and keep pinning their ears back and jumping everywhere and I'm scared

  10. two weeks before a supertyphoon hit us two of my dogs died a week apart. i didnt think much of the first dog that looked like it 'committed suicide' by falling in an awkward position until the second also dropped dead suddenly (both dogs were healthy). Days before they looked so spooked and restless constantly looking at the door and a week after grieving from one death after another the supertyphoon hit. The night of the supertyphoon my other dog (i had 5 dogs) started barking after staying quiet for hours hiding. Around midnight just before the strong winds peeled off my wall (because it wasnt full wood or concrete) my dog started barking as if to say "take cover, take cover its gonna fly off" because we were holding the wall to keep it from being sucked off, by midnight we decided to let go off the wall and run under our metal bunk bed and took shelter from there as the eyewall of the storm passed over us (agonizingly too long because it lasted until morning). I truly believe animals can sense natural disasters

  11. I always get a weird feeling in my blood and chest when it's about to storm most the time I can predict when it's about to hell one time it felt so off I almost had a panic attack and before I knew it we got a tornado warning a few hours later does anyone else have this problem

  12. Before Hurricane Harvey my cat and rabbit were alert and scared in the days before the storm hit Texas. They were not social and my rabbit would not come out of her cage. This was also the same week of the eclipse.

  13. Came across your channel. I breed Soft Coated Wheaten Terriers here in Southern Ontario Canada. I put my dogs out in the backyard around 5 a.m. Feb 1, 2019. The strangest thing was all 8 of them ran out and stopped and looked up and never moved for almost 2 to 3 minutes. I could not see anything. I've never seen all of them do this all at the same time. Weird.

  14. I'm sure they do! I know I did when an ef3 tornado hit r town . I wasn't even that close to the area but I instantly and unexpectedly had intents pain in my guts to witch I instantly fell to my knees in pain.

  15. Damn straight! If dogs and cats can use their senses to detect cancer (among other things), then its pretty obvious why they get uncomfortable in bad weather (or worse weather).

  16. > Sir I told you know 1 to 4.9 M T for65 hours and 5 to 8 M Tand 9 to 2.5hours time coming earthquake are big earthquake coming 2.5 hours and small 65 hours before come sir boomerang sanser's use in earthquake elctronik warning system please sir I help you make a system. Catch the before earthquake E M F
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  17. My cat woke me up as the loudest sound i ever heard sounded right outside my window. nobody in the house or neighborhood heard a thing. we were scared for our lives. i just cant explain that.

  18. my were animals behaving crazy then I noticed they were senseing somthing far far away after a caouple of days i found out that they were senseing your MAMA!

    BURNED!

  19. A deep rumbling sound coming from a wide angle wouldn't necessarily indicate which direction to flee in, or how far away to travel in order to achieve safety. It's not perceptive — it's something different…

  20. Animals may as well have a deeper connection with their senses but I could always predict storms when I broke my collarbone for about 2 whole months and even 6 months after that I could sometimes get a glimpse of future thunderstorms.

  21. Before the recent Napa Earthquake in California our cat that sleeps on my father's chest suddenly jumped off the bed and hid. This is a giant, lazy cat. He doesn't wake up or even move for just anything.

    Less than two minutes later the biggest Earthquake in Northern California since 1989 hit.

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