Posted on 12/30/2004 3:15:26 AM PST by kattracks
JOHANNESBURG, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Wild animals seem to have escaped the Indian Ocean tsunami, adding weight to notions they possess a "sixth sense" for disasters, experts said on Thursday.Sri Lankan wildlife officials have said the giant waves that killed over 24,000 people along the Indian Ocean island's coast seemingly missed wild beasts, with no dead animals found.
"No elephants are dead, not even a dead hare or rabbit. I think animals can sense disaster. They have a sixth sense. They know when things are happening," H.D. Ratnayake, deputy director of Sri Lanka's Wildlife Department, said on Wednesday.
The waves washed floodwaters up to 3 km (2 miles) inland at Yala National Park in the ravaged southeast, Sri Lanka's biggest wildlife reserve and home to hundreds of wild elephants and several leopards. "There has been a lot of anecdotal evidence about dogs barking or birds migrating before volcanic eruptions or earthquakes. But it has not been proven," said Matthew van Lierop, an animal behaviour specialist at Johannesburg Zoo.
"There have been no specific studies because you can't really test it in a lab or field setting," he told Reuters.
Other authorities concurred with this assessment.
"Wildlife seem to be able to pick up certain phenomenon, especially birds ... there are many reports of birds detecting impending disasters," said Clive Walker, who has written several books on African wildlife.
Animals certainly rely on the known senses such as smell or hearing to avoid danger such as predators.
The notion of an animal "sixth sense" -- or some other mythical power -- is an enduring one which the evidence on Sri Lanka's battered coast is likely to add to.
The Romans saw owls as omens of impending disaster and many ancient cultures viewed elephants as sacred animals endowed with special powers or attributes.
The tsunami was triggered by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean on Sunday. It killed tens of thousands of people in Asia and East Africa.
A more plausible explanation than this bogus magical animal sixth sense nonsense: All the beachfront in these overpopulated hellholes is hogged by humans for fishing, tourism, etc. The animals are inland in the mountains and forests.
That, and many animals are liable to flee at the slightest instigation..
Actually animals have sharper senses than humans. They can detect weather changes. For example some birds fly south before winter and make the same stops each year. Dogs sniff out people. They DO know when storms are approaching as well.
There is an old saying: Those who know the sea, do not live by the sea. Animals follow this rule, generally, with the exception of shore birds.
I imagine the animals "felt the earthquake" and fled inland to seek cover.
There were several references to the "earth trembling" from the after effects of this strong earthquake, so an animal would be much more atune to that.
Plus their sense of hearing is so much keener. Maybe they heard the wave coming...my dogs know a thunderstorm is approaching long before I do.
Snakes detecting incredible minute changes in temperature.
Bloodhounds being able to smell a few (let's not get technical) molecules of scent.
Eagles/hawks being able to "see" a field mouse from a mile or two away.
Moths/bugs detecting incredibly small amounts of various substances.
Don't you imagine the approaching tsunami might create "vibrations"? Like on the tracks when a train is still very distant. Perhaps animals can sense those.
Add dogs' ability to hear high pitched sounds which we can't detect. Vibrations can emit such high tones (think tuning fork).
Rubbish. Animals have been endowed by their creator with mechanisms to survive that you didn't get. No need to be snippy about it.
He wasn't getting snippy, just saying that it is a natural sense and not some voodoo "magical" powers.
You may have noticed that when the pressure drops ahead of a storm, swallows, purple martins, etc. fly at lower altitudes.
He said no such thing. He accused humans of crowding the animals out to a secure distance.
Horses and cattle are keenly aware of climatic and changes in nature as well, whether its a thunderstorm, tornado, or even a winter blizzard.
Cats can hear at an even higher pitch than dogs. Elephants, on the other hand, can hear at a lower range than humans. Their superior hearing, sight and, perhaps, an ability to sense changes in the atmosphere warned animals that something was terribly wrong and to flee if they could.
My late father had a leg that could tell if rain was coming -- the result of a wound from WWII.
Thanks for the added information.
Interesting, isn't it?
I have a soft spot for the eagle. Instead of getting as far away from a storm as possible or hiding they stay and soar ABOVE the storm.
Need I add that I love animals. They fascinate me.
I would agree with your analysis as you would assume there would be little or nothing for an animal at sea side. My first thought was most animals don't have hands and therefore were swept out to sea. I mean, how could you prove it, although I believe it's been proven that dogs have a sense prior to an earthquake happening...
Yeah ... I know what you mean. Cruel isn't it?
Why I haven't mowed my lawn, or weed whacked since I discovered I was killing lizards and bugs, not to mention the torture I was inflicting on the grass and weeds. ;)
I feel tremblors all the time that nobody else seems to notice....and confirmed in the news broadcasts later in the day.
My eyes are bad, and my hearing, impaired; but a walk in the woods with company, and I'm the one pointing out the birds and flowers and animals. I see and hear...and especially smell things.....that others don't click on. I think it's cuz folks are having internal dialogue, and missing subtle clues all around them. Animals don't have chats with themselves in their heads. Survival depends on analysis of environment.
My theory is that one can train one's self to a hightened state of permanent alertness. I spent many years on a walking beat in the city....wee hours, totally outwardly focused, looking, listening, smelling, making sub-conscious notes. It becomes a mode after a while. I think soldiers must get this happening, too. Fishermen get it: survival, in all three examples, depends on analysis of environment.
Actually, most animals can swim instinctively. Many people, especially the young and third world women can't.
Apparently, third-world women are designated by the Creator as floats for third-world men, from what I've read.
Bingo!
I doubt Muslim women in particular are ever given the opportunity learn to swim.
She recalls the men stripping life jackets from the women and climbing atop swimming women, drowning them, to save themselves. The author related it to cultural pecularities....probably Islam.....maybe else?
Reader's Digest....some years ago.
There's a tornado; let's chase it. A hurricane is coming; let's go surfing. Here comes an ice storm; let's go driving in our 4WD at 50 MPH. Etc.
Do they have a final estimate of exactly how far inland and how high the water was when it reached it? Also how long did it take to recede?
The cats in my wife's mother's house would one day go crazy, charging about, knocking things over, hiding, not coming out even for food. Within twenty-four hours there would be news of an earthquake somewhere in the world. Never failed.
When that ferry sunk in the Baltic ten years ago or so, men did the same thing, climbing over women and shrieking children. Nearly all the few survivors were men between 20 and 40.
What got me was that drifting Dominican boat a few month back, and the men started forcing women to suckle them, biting at their breasts, first the nursing women, and then the rest of them.
Chivalry seems well and truly dead, all over.
Mrs VS
"Do they have a final estimate of exactly how far inland and how high the water was when it reached it? Also how long did it take to recede?"
Naw, they don't have that info yet. I'd think it's still much too early for those kinds of details. There are several articles out there floating around about Yala National Park. One is Reuters and the other is an AP. I think the AP reporter had a flyover of the park. The park is 103+ hectacres with only 56 open to the public, so it's pretty large. Since they were doing flyovers, I'm sure there was some sort of an initial assessment going on that led to the reports.
"There is an old saying: Those who know the sea, do not live by the sea."
What a crock. I'll be sure to tell that to the next 4th generation commercial fisherman I run across down on the NC coast.
My weather barometer (NC) isn't the clueless weather people on TV - but the birds in the yard. Watch for them to go crazy feeding and you know snow is REALLY coming in 24 hrs..
Hmmmm... now that I think about it, you never saw any squirrls or chipmunks around at Kerry rallies, didya?
No sixth sense required for either of those things...
I'm sure the feminists love this kind of story.
He looked like kind of a nut, but he did have some facts at his disposal...
I don't see why this is a "sixth" sense at all--if it shows to be a genuine phenomena, it should be simple to explain. Most animals already have senses better than our own--smell, hearing--and might well be better at paying attn to them.
There is a dead animal in the gruesome photo on this thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1310424/posts?page=5#5 at reply #5. At first I thought it was a baby, but the feet look much too small to be anything but a cat or dog.
THE PHOTO IS VERY DISTURBING. Don't go if you think it may upset you. The animal is in the bottom left-hand corner.
When I was in High School in North Carolina, we had a hurricane coming up the coast and about to strike us.
The birds just went nuts. We had twenty or thirty blackbirds which flew down our chimney an hour or so before the storm hit.
Wierd. I think they responded to changes in barometric pressure.
I agree only you left out hunters. I have many times smelled my quarry before sighting them, my broother still thinks I am making this up. On another note about animal sith sense. Most seem to be posting about animals other senses and I indeed believe that these basic senses 9 times out of 10 is what enables the animal to survive. It is just a higher level of sense. Wheteher we are talking about a Deers ability to see movement at great distance or a Turkeys ability to pinpoint your location from a single cluck on the call.
The ability for the animals to see or hear the coing waves or the initial quake I would argue would not be part of the 6th sense that I believe they have.
Their sixth sense comes in, most of the time in my experience as a sportsman, when you are in the field with out a gun and just observing nature you can walk right up on them and they will not spook. But put a gun in your hand and try it. I read once where the vibe if you could call it that, put out by predators is picked up by animals of prey and acted upon. You can believe this or not as I have no way of proving it other than field experience that could be subject to many other factors.
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