Can whales predict tsunamis?

[Judi Lynn]

Can whales predict tsunamis?

A British photographer witnessed a school of whales vanishing during an underwater earthquake. Could they serve as 'canaries' for humans?

Posted by
Philip Hoare
Sunday 15 April 2012 15.00 EDT

Do whales hear earthquakes long before humans? As tsunami warnings hit the Indonesian and Sri Lankan coasts last week, observers at sea watched as every species of cetacean – from massive blue whales to diminutive spinner dolphins – disappeared within five minutes. British photographer and film-maker Andrew Sutton, who took this remarkable shot last Wednesday off the southern tip of Sri Lanka, reports that he and his crew were mystified as the whales they were watching vanished in the space of a few minutes. The humans on the boat were unaware that the quake had happened, but the animals had evidently sensed the subsea seismic shocks, and fled.

Could cetaceans act as canaries in the sea, as advance alarms of potentially dangerous seismic activity? Both the Japan and New Zealand earthquakes of last year were preceded by mass cetacean strandings on beaches in these respective islands. And a recent scientific report from Mexico appears to prove that a fin whale accelerated sharply away from the site of an underwater earthquake.

But having already exploited whales for centuries, perhaps we should not be so quick to enlist their services. Back in 1964, another erstwhile resident of Sri Lanka, the science-fiction writer, Arthur C Clarke, predicted that by the year 2000, "we will not be the only intelligent creatures. One of the coming techniques will be what we might call bioengineering – the development of intelligent and useful servants among the other animals on this planet, particularly the great apes and, in the oceans, the dolphins and whales".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/shortcuts/2012/apr/15/can-whales-predict-tsunamis

[Warpy]

1. Why servants? Why not partners?

Gawd, who writes this stuff?

Observing cetaceans with radio collars could indeed serve as early tsunami warning. However, something should be in it for them, too, like a complete ban on hunting them.

[dipsydoodle]

2. Well put.

.

[lastlib]

6. You have my whole-hearted agreement on this, Warpy!!

It is indeed CRIMINAL what we do to our fellow denizens of earth, especially the ocean-swelling ones!

[saras]

3. Servants? Partners? Why should they tell US? (except for their moral superiority, of course)

Seriously.

They have no good pragmatic reason to let us know.

If we were in the same position, we certainly wouldn't go out of our way to let them know.

You apparently just can't stop slavers from wanting to be slavers. Whips, economics, bioengineering, it's all the same to them, as long as their will trumps the will of other beings.

[xchrom]

4. Du rec. Nt

[lastlib]

5. Hell, yes, animals can sense these things before humans can!

I can personally attest to two instances where my cat and my dog reacted to earthquakes that I didn't even feel! Animals are vastly superior to us in all of their senses; in an evolutionary sense, we humans have traded off a great deal for the abilities that we have. I often question whether we really are the highest form of life on the planet, and others have raised the question of what dolphins or whales could achieve if they could develop hands and feet, and use fire.

Arthur C. Clarke even wrote a short story based on the idea of animals sensing earthquakes before humans can--check out Dog Star if you're interested.