Chinese Wonder If Animals Predict Earthquakes

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/china_earthquake_animal_signs

Chinese wonder if animals can predict earthquakes
By HENRY SANDERSON, Associated Press Writer
Thu May 15, 4:42 AM ET

BEIJING - First, the water level in a pond inexplicably plunged. Then, thousands of toads appeared on streets in a nearby province. Finally, just hours before China's worst earthquake in three decades, animals at a local zoo began acting strangely.

As bodies are pulled from the wreckage of Monday's quake, Chinese online chat rooms and blogs are buzzing with a question: Why didn't these natural signs alert the government that a disaster was coming?

"If the seismological bureau were professional enough they could have predicted the earthquake ten days earlier, when several thousand cubic meters of water disappeared within an hour in Hubei, but the bureau there dismissed it," one commentator wrote.

In fact, seismologists say, it is nearly impossible to predict when and where an earthquake will strike.

Several countries, including China, have sought to use changes in nature — mostly animal behavior — as an early warning sign. But so far, no reliable way has been found to use animals to predict earthquakes, said Roger Musson, a seismologist with the British Geological Survey.

But that has not stopped a torrent of online discussion. Even the mainstream media has chimed in, with an article in Tuesday's China Daily newspaper questioning why the government did not predict the earthquake.

Online commentators say the first sign came about three weeks ago, when large amounts of water suddenly disappeared from a pond in Enshi city in Hubei province, around 350 miles east of the epicenter, according to media reports.

Then, three days before the earthquake, thousands of toads roamed the streets of Mianzhu, a hard-hit city where at least 2,000 people have been reported killed.

Mianzhu residents feared the toads were a sign of an approaching natural disaster, but a local forestry bureau official said it was normal, the Huaxi Metropolitan newspaper reported May 10, two days before the earthquake.

The day of the earthquake, zebras were banging their heads against a door at the zoo in Wuhan, more than 600 miles east of the epicenter, according to the Wuhan Evening Paper.

Elephants swung their trunks wildly, almost hitting a staff member. The 20 lions and tigers, which normally would be asleep at midday, were walking around. Five minutes before the quake hit, dozens of peacocks started screeching.

There are a few possible reasons for such behavior, said Musson, the seismologist. The most likely is that the movement of underground rocks before an earthquake generates an electrical signal that some animals can perceive. Another theory holds that other animals can sense weak shocks before an earthquake that are imperceptible to humans.

Zhang Xiaodong, a researcher at the China Seismological Bureau, said his agency has used natural activity to predict earthquakes 20 times in the past 20 years, but that still represents a small proportion of China's earthquakes.

"The problem now is this kind of relationship is still quite vague," he said.

In winter 1975, Chinese officials ordered the evacuation of the city of Haicheng in northeastern Liaoning province the day before a 7.3 magnitude earthquake, based on reports of unusual animal behavior and changes in ground water levels. Still, more than 2,000 people died. Strange environmental phenomena including changes in well water levels, were also reported a year later before a 7.6 magnitude earthquake in Tangshan in northeastern China that killed 240,000, Musson said.

A team of Chinese seismologists was sent to the region but didn't find any evidence to suggest an earthquake. As the seismologists were going home, they stopped for the night in Tangshan and were killed in the quake.

I don't know about the ability of animals to foretell an earthquake, but can you imagine what would happen in say, San Francisco, if police officers started going door-to-door evacuating people because animals had started acting in a wierd way or because a local pond or lake had suddenly lost most of it's water?

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

Can Animals Sense Earthquakes?Maryann Mott
for National Geographic News

November 11, 2003
The belief that animals can predict earthquakes has been around for centuries.

In 373 B.C., historians recorded that animals, including rats, snakes and weasels, deserted the Greek city of Helice in droves just days before a quake devastated the place.

"Magnetic Map" Found to Guide Animal Migration
Accounts of similar animal anticipation of earthquakes have surfaced across the centuries since. Catfish moving violently, chickens that stop laying eggs and bees leaving their hive in a panic have been reported. Countless pet owners claimed to have witnessed their cats and dogs acting strangely before the ground shook—barking or whining for no apparent reason, or showing signs of nervousness and restlessness.

But precisely what animals sense, if they feel anything at all, is a mystery. One theory is that wild and domestic creatures feel the Earth vibrate before humans. Other ideas suggest they detect electrical changes in the air or gas released from the Earth.

Earthquakes are a sudden phenomenon. Seismologists have no way of knowing exactly when or where the next one will hit. An estimated 500,000 detectable quakes occur in the world each year. Of those, 100,000 can be felt by humans, and 100 cause damage.

One of the world's most earthquake-prone countries is Japan, where devastation has taken countless lives and caused enormous damage to property. Researchers there have long studied animals in hopes of discovering what they hear or feel before the Earth shakes in order to use that sense as a prediction tool.

American seismologists, on the other hand, are skeptical. Even though there have been documented cases of strange animal behavior prior to earthquakes, the United States Geological Survey, a government agency that provides scientific information about the Earth, says a reproducible connection between a specific behavior and the occurrence of a quake has never been made.

"What we're faced with is a lot of anecdotes," said Andy Michael, a geophysicist at USGS. "Animals react to so many things—being hungry, defending their territories, mating, predators—so it's hard to have a controlled study to get that advanced warning signal."

In the 1970s, a few studies on animal prediction were done by the USGS "but nothing concrete came out of it," said Michael. Since that time the agency has made no further investigations into the theory.

Erratic Behavior in Dogs

Researchers around the world continue to pursue the idea, however. In September 2003 a medical doctor in Japan made headlines with a study that indicated erratic behavior in dogs, such as excessive barking or biting, could be used to forecast quakes.

There have also been examples where authorities have forecast successfully a major earthquake, based in part on the observation of the strange antics of animals. For example, in 1975 Chinese officials ordered the evacuation of Haicheng, a city with one million people, just days before a 7.3-magnitude quake. Only a small portion of the population was hurt or killed. If the city had not been evacuated, it is estimated that the number of fatalities and injuries could have exceeded 150,000.

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The Haicheng incident is what gave people hope that earthquakes might be predictable, says Michael, and what prompted the animal behavior studies by the USGS.

It was later discovered, though, that a rare series of small tremors, called foreshocks, occurred before the large quake hit the city.


"It was the foreshock sequence that gave (Chinese officials) the solid prediction," Michael said.

Still, the Chinese have continued to look at animal behavior as an aid to earthquake prediction. They have had several notable successes and also a few false alarms, said Rupert Sheldrake, a biologist and author of the books, Dogs that Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home and The Sense of Being Stared At.

A reproducible connection between animal behavior and earthquakes could be made, he said, but "as the Chinese have discovered, not all earthquakes cause unusual animal behavior while others do. Only through research could we find out why there might be such differences."

Sheldrake did his own study looking at animal reactions before major tremors, including the Northridge, California, quake in 1994, and the Greek and Turkish quakes in 1999.

In all cases, he said, there were reports of peculiar behavior beforehand, including dogs howling in the night mysteriously, caged birds becoming restless, and nervous cats hiding.

Geologists, however, dismiss these kinds of reports, saying it's "the psychological focusing effect," where people remember strange behaviors only after an earthquake or other catastrophe has taken place. If nothing had happened, they contend, people would not have remembered the strange behavior.

Reporting Strange Behavior

Sheldrake disagrees. Comparable patterns of animal behavior prior to earthquakes have been reported independently by people all over the world, he said. "I cannot believe that they could all have made up such similar stories or that they all suffered from tricks of memory."

More research is needed and is long overdue, said Sheldrake, who proposes a special hotline or Web site where people could call or write in if they saw strange behavior in their animals. A computer would then analyze the incoming messages to determine where they originated. A sudden surge of calls or e-mails from a particular region might indicate that a quake was imminent.

The information would be checked to make sure the observations were not caused by other circumstances known to affect the behavior of animals, such as fireworks, or changes in weather. And to avoid issuing false warnings, Sheldrake said, the data would be used in conjunction with other monitoring devices such as seismological measurements.

"Such a project would capture the imagination of millions of people, encourage large-scale public participation and research—and would be fun," he said. "What is holding this research back is not money but dogmatism and narrow-mindedness."

Animals are more "in tune" with nature. I think they 'know' something is up!

I do think animals sense when a disaster is about to occur.

IMHO animals can tell you when something is up... I listen to the animals in my area... If I am sitting outside I listen for the night noises... When the night critters stop talking it is time for me to go into the house.. I know there is something close by...

Birds are another excellent indicator of things.. The worse the storm is going to be the lower they to the ground they will be... Also if there are snakes in the yard the birds will let you know they are there and where they are at.. They will start shrieking and twittering.. They will keep flying close where the snake is at and watch it...

I remember as a child being told to "Be quiet, listen and you will learn". It was true.. We no longer listen to nature.. We are too wrapped up in the hustle and bustle of life...

Topusaret said:

I don't know about the ability of animals to foretell an earthquake, but can you imagine what would happen in say, San Francisco, if police officers started going door-to-door evacuating people because animals had started acting in a wierd way or because a local pond or lake had suddenly lost most of it's water?

Click to expand...

Why should they have to go so far as to evacuate? What if they simply posted a Earthquake watch?

We do the same thing for Severe weather. We have Watches and Warnings.

There's a good book out about this subject called "When Snakes Awake". It was published in 1982.

In 1997 there was a 6.0 EQ near where I live. The morning of the quake I was watering the garden & spotted gophers & mice running around above ground during broad daylight. That was my first clue. Then my dog got in the truck & would not come out. That was his favorite place & was where he felt safe. I tried to get him out but he growled & snapped at me. After the quake the dog stayed in the truck for almost 2 days, a cat stayed in a tree for almost 3 days, & a lot of my chickens layed eggs during the quake (right on their perches). Immediately after the quake I went outside & noticed that there were NO birds flying and a lot of birds were sitting on the ground under trees & vehicles. None of the birds moved for over an hour.

Don't know how to stick pictures in posts but there is a picture circulating the 'net that shows thousands of frogs trying to cross a road before the Chengdu quake.

http://www.weirdasianews.com/2008/05/13/frog-migration-omen-to-china-earthquake-disaster/

My cat always washes his face right before rain. When theres a cold snap coming in, he eats like a pig. So yes, IMO, animals do know whats coming better than humans do.

Our 7 year old GSD starts hiding in the walk-in closet when the air pressure starts to drop, that means it's going to be crazy windy.

I know for a fact he has no clue what a barometer is.

He also jumps on the bed at night when the wind picks up.

We don't want to use him as a pillow so we have a 1 minute wrestlemania event.

When we have a thunderstorm, he crawls under my desk behind my PC a half an hour before it hits us.

He fits in some amazing places.

Do you remember that just before the sunami that struck in SE asia, that all the elephants headed for the hills? Even the ones with people on their backs. And that there were either no or almost no animal carcasses found.

We used to have a guy, Jim Berkland, that would watch the Lost Dog and Lost Cat ads in the papers, and predict EQ in the SF Bay area. He was pretty good....and then he got fired.

Back in 1989 when the Loma Prieta quake struck we were living in Sacramento about 100 miles west of the epicenter.

For about a week prior to the quake our bare eyed cockatoo and our African Grey refused to stay in their cages and I finally opted to let them be loose in the den with door closed. They're perch on the top of the windows and the picture molding ... We lived in a Victorian then, with 11 foot ceilings....... It was easier on the birds to have the freedom to find a comfortable area (pulled the shades so they wouldn't fly into a window) and be relatively calm...........

Anyway ..... The day of the quake my husband came home just minutes before the quake and said the birds were squaking so loudly (not their usual behaviour) that he heard them a block from the house (his office with the city was only 3 blocks from our place) ...... I was working about 20 miles away and was driving on highway 50 when it hit and and all I felt was a mild queasiness....... Then the news started to break on the radio ........

When I got home our birds were in panic mode and I finally was able to calm them by laying on the floor and letting them come down to me ......... I slept on the den floor for a couple nights as they'd only be calm when I was with them .....

So yes, I do think that animals are very much attuned / sensitive to the earth changes the preceed some earth events ....... I also think that some people are sensitive to them and have a general sense that something is about to happen ......