January 19, 2005 While scientists across the globe race to develop a multi-million dollar tsunami warning system for countries bordering the Indian Ocean, anecdotal evidence may suggest a more primitive method for predicting such natural disasters: animals.
While some reports estimate 200 casualties in Sri Lanka’s Yala National Park, Daya Kariyawasam, Director-General of Wildlife and Conservation at Yala told Reuters “I have been cruising around the park for a few days now and I have not even seen one carcass, not even one of a water buffalo. All the animals appear to have fled before the tsunami struck.”
The Washington Post reported that along Thailand’s west coast, a dozen elephants began trumpeting their horns around the time of the 9.0-magnitude earthquake, and continued their agitated behavior until they headed for higher ground, some breaking free of their chains in the process. Monkeys, bats, snakes, and dogs were all reported to be acting erratically.
Myth has long attributed animals with a “sixth sense,” or an innate ability to foretell oncoming natural disasters, but some scientists disagree.
“I don’t think it’s a sixth sense — at least nothing we can measure at this point,” Diana Reiss, Ph.D., director of marine mammal research at the Wildlife Conservation Society told foxnews.com. “Animals have very refined senses. In many species, they have sensory abilities beyond ours.”
The elephants’ behavior could just be a result of the acuity of their five known senses. Psychobiologist James Walker of the Sensory Research Institute at Florida State University told The Washington Post that elephants can hear “infra-sound” – frequencies in the range of one to three hertz, compared with humans’ 100 to 200 hertz range.
But, while National Zoo spokesperson John Gibbons told Outside that elephants are sensitive to ground-borne vibrations, he is quick to note that “the majority of information coming out of Southeast Asia is anecdotal. We can’t create fact out of anecdote,” he said.
In one of the few scientific studies conducted on the issue, a report by conservation scientist Dr. Eric Wikramanayake, et. al. describes elephant behaviors in Yala National Park that contrasts with many first-hand accounts elsewhere. Two radio-collared elephants moving in different herds have been tracked in the park since late October. As the pachyderms travel in herds, the movement of the individual is thought to be representative of their respective group.
According to the report, the animals' movements before and after the event "suggest that neither elephant reacted in an extreme manner prior to or even during the tsunami. In fact, the movement of the female prior to and around the time of impact was towards the beach, rather than inland."
While the herds have been recorded moving as much as six miles in one night in response to human activities, their movements preceding the tsunami were seemingly mundane. According to the report, there was no "behavior among these elephants that would indicate flight in response to the impending tsunamis, or of the geological events that gave rise to it.”
While the collared elephants were not in a seriously effected area, Dr. Wikramanayake presumes many animals were not so lucky. He attributes the lack of animal carcasses found in Yala to the fact that rescue workers are primarily concerned with finding and removing human corpses.
"The bottom line is that no one bothered to look among the tangled mass of vegetation and debris where the wave came ashore," he said."The priority was to look for people who had gone into the
park that morning. Dead animals don't turn fluorescent orange, so unless you search you won't find them."
