Little or no wildlife animals dead in Sri Lanka

[Kedas]

http://www.alertnet.org/printable.htm?URL=/thenews/newsdesk/COL136356.htm

 

Seems the wildlife animals used their instincts right. (unlike most humans)

[[Tycho?]]

6th sense? Hahaha.

 

Animals dont crowd around the ocean in vast numbers like humans do. A hare or an elephant can't use the ocean.

 

Plus, most animals avoid human settlements. And these settlements are invariably around the coast.

 

So many people died because they are all crowded in the coastal areas, while the animals avoid human settlements and are spread out.

[Ophiolite]

I decisively beg to differ:

For example, from the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, April 2000

 

Abstract:

"Animals living within seismically active regions are subjected episod-ically to intense ground shaking that can kill individuals through burrow collapse, egg destruction, and tsunami action. Although anecdotal and retrospective reports of animal behavior suggest that although many organisms may be able to detect an impending seismic event, no plausible scenario has been presented yet through which accounts for the evolution of such behaviors. The evolutionary mechanism of ex-aptation can do this in a two-step process. The first step is to evolve a vibration-triggered early warning response which would act in the short time interval between the arrival of P and S waves. Anecdotal evidence suggests this response already

exists. Then if precursory stimuli also exist, similar evolutionary processes can link an animal’s perception of these stimuli to its P-wave triggered response, yielding an earthquake predictive behavior. A population-genetic model indicates that such a seismic-escape response system can be maintained against random mutations as a result of episodic selection that operates with time scales comparable to that of strong seismic events. Hence, additional understanding of possible earthquake precursors that are presently outside the realm of seismology might be gleaned from the study of animal behavior, sensory physiology, and genetics. A brief review of possible seismic precursors suggests that tilt, hygroreception (humidity), electric, and mag-netic sensory systems in animals could be linked into a seismic escape behavioral system. Several testable predictions of this analysis are discussed, and it is recom-mended that additional magnetic, electrical, tilt, and hygro-sensors be incorporated into dense monitoring networks in seismically active regions."

 

Full paper here : http://www.gps.caltech.edu/users/jkirschvink/pdfs/earthquakeprediction.pdf

 

I have no doubt at all that animals can sense approaching catastrophes in some way (or more likely, ways). I can see little logical reason why man would not also have this ability. Since it is rarely, if ever, evident it has either atrophied, or been supressed. I suspect the latter. Animals are in almost constant danger in their environment. An inattentive animal is a dead animal. Humans, by comparison, can be comparatively relaxed most of the time. I think the consequence is that animals heed the small warning signals (for tsunamis I'd suspect subtle airpressure changes), while humans ignore them.

[coquina]

I wonder if it has anything to do with variations in the earth's magnetism. Many animals are capable of magnetoreception:

 

http://soma.npa.uiuc.edu/courses/physl490b/models/magnetoreception/magnetoreception.html

 

Wouldn't the shifting of plates during an earthquake interfere with the earth's magnetic field?

 

BTW - ophie - have you heard of "earthquake lights"? http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf074/sf074g14.htm

 

If there is enough energy rising from the ground to cause a luminosity - there must be other forms of energy that we are not able to discern. Maybe the animals can.

 

I read that a lot of studies were done in Japan and China to test how animals predicted earthquakes - but, for one thing, their "fight or flight" response is triggered much more easily. While the human stands there gaping with a "WTF?" look on his face - the animal has already started to run.

[Ophiolite]

I am sure magnetic variation is a strong candidate. Certainly earthquakes do alter the local magnetic field (and local with a quake this size is a pretty big area.). Electrical properties of the rock also change: not surprising.

Sensitivity to minor pre-shocks may be another factor.

I know of earthquake lights. The difficulty with transient phenomena like that is that in a major earthquake observers are rarely cool and detached. (Although, that said, the third earthquake I was in brought itself to my attention through my shoes 'walking' themselves out from under a closet. I was about to replace them to see if they would do it again when my wife called me to the kitchen to observe the water slopping from side to side in the sink and up onto the drainingboard. 12th floor Mexico City, so we had some good movement going though I think it was only a 5.8)

The Chinese in particular did a lot of research on animal earthquake detection. I wonder if we should be looking at the issue as an example of symbiosis. Different species may have different detection mechanisms. Individual species do not have to develop a full array of mechanisms, they just have to recognise panic in others, and then head for the hills. Pure speculation of course, but, I think, logical.