Seemingly no animals dead in tsunami

[Texsox]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/12/30...reut/index.html

 

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (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.

 

Jim, what's your take on this?

[KipWellsFan]

Animals obviously have something we don't. It's already been proven that dogs can predict seizures with their epilleptic owners.

 

Animal magic

Dogs can predict seizures with a sloppy kiss, say Canadian researchers. Some dogs can sense when their owner is having a seizure. Some lick their face, or try and protect them, say by preventing them from walking down the stairs. Neurologists say the dogs may pick up subtle visual clues.

 

And that's not all dogs can pick up. U.K. researchers say we can train dogs to sniff cancer in urine.

 

Just when you think you've heard it all, another team of U.K. researchers says ducks quack in regional accents. London ducks quack louder, like a cross between a shout and a laugh. But ducks from rural Cornwall make more relaxed sounds, more like a giggle. Quackers, the lot of them.

 

http://abc.net.au/science/news/ancient/Anc...ish_1265639.htm

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0319/kamenetz.php

[FlaSoxxJim]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/12/30...reut/index.html

 

 

 

Jim, what's your take on this?

I certainly think animals are in tune with broader spectra on the natural world, and as such there is no need to invoke a "sixth sense" per se.

 

Many can see better than us, hear better than us, sense ultra-low vibrations better/broader than us. None of it needs to be a sixth sense - their innate natural sensory perception just goes well beyond ours.

 

We know full well there is an infrared and an ultraviolet component to the light spectrum, but there are animals that actually see those wavelengths clear as day. As sound becomes touch low on that scale, we become deaf, but some whales hear-feel low frequencies in the so-called SOFAR range that they may be able to use to literally communicate across ocean basins. House cats and dogs sense barometer changes that are compleetly out or our sensory perception...

 

That said, any suggestion that animals just plain didn't die in large numbers in this catastrophe is talking in hyperbole. Coastal subtidal and even intertidal habitats probably fared well, and upland species probably did as well. But, every range-restricted domestic animal in the path of the tsunami - cats, dogs, livestock... - all of them must have suffered substantial losses.