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The Pet Supplies Blog - Pets, Dogs, Cats, Pet Supply Reviews, Equine, Rabbits, AquariumsWe love our pets and they love us. This blog is dedicated to all of our furry friends.Friday, May 9, 2008 Can Pets Sense Impending Earthquakes? - Anti-Anxiety Remedies- CLICK HERE!
 I read an interesting article from the the National Geographic magazine that talked in detail on whether pets and animals can sense an impending earthquake. We have all heard the theory that animals can predict an earthquake - but is there any substantial evidence that this theory is true? In 373 B.C., historians recorded that animals, including rats, snakes and weasels, deserted the Greek city of Helice in droves just days before a quake devastated the place. Since then .. there have been a variety of reports on the extrasensory earthquake perception of our pets.Countless pet owners claimed to have witnessed their cats and dogs acting strangely before the ground started to shake during one of California's numerous quakes —barking or whining for no apparent reason, or showing signs of nervousness and restlessness, hiding under beds etc... HomeoPet Anti-Anxiety for Pets One theory is that wild and domestic creatures feel the Earth vibrate before humans. Other ideas suggest they detect electrical changes in the air or gas released from the Earth. There have been even more incidents that show that animals can feel the foreshocks or small tremors that come before a full fledged earthquake.In the 1970s, a few studies on animal earthquake prediction were done by the USGS but nothing concrete came out of it. Since that time the agency has made no further investigations into the theory. There have been examples where authorities have forecast successfully a major earthquake, based in part on the observation of the strange antics of animals. For example, in 1975 Chinese officials ordered the evacuation of Haicheng, a city with one million people, just days before a 7.3-magnitude quake. It was later discovered, though, that a rare series of small tremors, called foreshocks, occurred before the large quake hit the city - animals may have felt these tremors. Get your Emergency Preparedness Supplies and Food at Nitro-Pak Coupons Some people and professions, however, dismiss these kinds of reports, saying it's "the psychological focusing effect," where people remember strange behaviors only after an earthquake or other catastrophe has taken place. If nothing had happened, they contend, people would not have remembered the unique pet behavior. There have been proposals for a special hotline or Web site where people could call or write in if they saw strange behavior in their animals. A computer would then analyze the incoming informaiton and messages to determine where they originated and how reliable they were. A sudden surge of calls or e-mails from a particular region might indicate that a quake was imminent. The information would be checked to make sure the observations were not caused by other circumstances known to affect the behavior of animals, such as fireworks, or changes in weather. And to avoid issuing false warnings, the data would be used in conjunction with other monitoring devices such as seismological measurements. A possible (and very speculative) interpretation is that when the rocks in a potential earthquake zone are stressed to almost the breaking point, the magnetic minerals in the bedrock are slightly realigned, changing the direction of the local magnetic field. Perhaps the animals sense this with their built-in compasses. Perhaps they don't. Nobody knows for sure! Labels: Pets and Earthquakes |
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