[Animals] The animals that detect disasters

[FazzNoth]

 

For millennia, people across the globe have reported alarmed animal behaviour in the run-up to natural disasters. Could these signals be used to warn us of impending catastrophes?

 

In 2004, a tsunami triggered by a 9.1 magnitude undersea quake off Indonesia decimated coastal communities around the Indian Ocean, killing at least 225,000 people across a dozen countries. The huge death toll was in part caused by the fact that many communities received no warning.

Local manmade early warning systems, such as tidal and earthquake sensors, failed to raise any clear alert. Many sensors were out of action due to maintenance issues, while many coastal areas lacked any tsunami siren warning systems. Haphazard communication also failed to provide warnings, with many text messages failing to reach mobiles in threatened areas or going unread.

Yet in the minutes and hours before surging walls of water up to 9m (30ft) high smashed through coastlines, some animals seemed to sense impending peril and make efforts to flee. According to eyewitness accounts, elephants ran for higher ground, flamingos abandoned low-lying nesting areas, and dogs refused to go outdoors. In the coastal village of Bang Koey in Thailand, locals reported a herd of buffalo by the beach suddenly pricking their ears, gazing out to sea, then stampeding to the top of a nearby hill a few minutes before the tsunami struck.

"Survivors also reported seeing animals, such as cows, goats, cats and birds, deliberately moving inland shortly after the earthquake and before the tsunami came," says Irina Rafliana, previously part of an advisory group for the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk (UNISDR) and now a researcher at the German Development Institute in Bonn. "Many of those who survived ran along with these animals or immediately after."

According to eyewitness accounts, elephants ran for higher ground ahead of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami (Credit: CHAIDEER MAHYUDDIN/Getty)

 

Rafliana recounts similar stories tied to her field work around other disasters, such as the 2010 tsunami generated by a subsea quake near Sumatra, which killed nearly 500 people on the Mentawai Islands. Here too, however, some animals, such as elephants, were reported to have responded as if possessing some kind of early knowledge of the event. Just days ago, a newly re-released turtle made a sudden U-turn two days before January's volcanic eruption in Tonga.

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Early warning systems do not exist in many areas struck regularly by natural disasters. In 2017, the World Meterological Organisation found that the governments of around 100 countries still lack early warning systems for natural disasters to which they were prone.

But these accounts about animal behaviour before disasters have prompted some researchers to devote serious scientific attention to the theory that animals may have inbuilt systems which alert them to impending natural disasters. It raises an intriguing question – could animals provide natural early warning systems for humans?

Survivors also reported seeing animals, such as cows, goats, cats and birds, deliberately moving inland shortly after the earthquake and before the tsunami came – Irina Rafliana
The earliest recorded reference to unusual animal behaviour prior to a natural disaster dates back to 373 BC, when the Greek historian Thucydides reported rats, dogs, snakes and weasels deserting the city of Helice in the days before a catastrophic earthquake. Other reports dot history. Minutes before the Naples quake of 1805, oxen, sheep, dogs and geese supposedly started making alarm calls in unison, while horses were said to have run off in panic just prior to the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.

Even with advanced technology it can be difficult to detect many kinds of impending natural disasters. In the case of earthquakes, for example, seismic sensors lurch into jolted squiggles only as the earth-juddering shocks are actually happening. Making reliable predictions requires precursor signals – and, as yet, scientists haven't found any signals that seem to occur consistently before big quakes. Hence the growing willingness of some scientists to consider more unorthodox warning signals – such as animal behaviour.

"Even with all the technology available today, we are not able to properly predict earthquakes or most natural catastrophes," says Charlotte Francesiaz, leader of an ornithological team at the French Biodiversity Office (OFB), and part of the Kivi Kuaka project, which is examining how migratory birds crossing the Pacific seem able to dodge storms and other hazards.

More info: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220211-the-animals-that-predict-disasters