Mysteries in Biology: Do Animals Predict Earthquakes?

The video below, taken ahead of the earthquake in Japan, raises the old question, do animals really have the instinct to predict earthquakes?

Since 373 BC, historians of ancient Greece have long suspected that animals could predict earthquakes. At that time, residents reported that wild animals such as rats, snakes and squirrels left the town of Helice, just days before the city was rocked by an earthquake. The ancient Japanese people also believed that when an earthquake would occur, the catfish would panic. This was further proven in 1855 and 1923 in Edo (now Tokyo) where before the earthquake, catfish were seen behaving strangely by swimming to the surface of ponds and rivers.

In 1975, the Chinese government evacuated the city of Haicheng when it saw a snake (which was hibernating in the middle of winter in the ground) gathering out of its hiding place to escape. Shortly thereafter, the area was rocked by an earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Ritcher scale. A year later, in 1976 another earthquake rocked the city of Tangshan and killed nearly 700,000 people. At that time there were actually reports of strange animal activity, but unfortunately due to the heated political situation at that time, the warning was ignored. In 2008, another earthquake in Mianyang was also thought to have occurred due to the massive migration of frogs before the disaster.

Not only that. A similar incident was recorded in Washington, United States in 2011 where zoo animals were reportedly nervous and panicked, especially primates who suddenly climbed trees in the seconds before the earthquake rocked and the slow loris continued to scream. Earlier, in 1989, a geologist named Jim Berkland managed to predict an earthquake in California after he saw the news in the newspaper that many pet owners reported that their cats and dogs were missing, possibly having fled to escape the disaster.

But the growing body of evidence still doesn't lead scientists to truly believe that animals can predict earthquakes. The reason is, the mechanism is not yet known. In contrast to volcanoes that give off signals before they erupt (such as an increase in ground temperature or a loud rumbling sound), earthquakes do not give a signal because they occur very instantaneously. And not only that, scientists are also afraid of issuing false alarms if only their observations depend on animal behavior. The reason is, animals can panic for various reasons, such as seeing predators, getting sick, stressed, afraid, and so on.

But is it true that animal instincts and senses can predict a disaster? Further research on this topic could possibly save many lives.