How did the animals know to get to high ground?

[spotbird]

They had adapted, but what did they "hear" what the humans missed? If we could learn this could lives be protected in earthquakes and tsunamis in the future?

[imenja]

1. Apparently the tide retreated before the Tsunami came in

Could they have observed that and known is was not normal? Could a smell have triggered their movements?

[antigone382]

22. Yes, the water always recedes before a Tsunami.

I always thought it was pretty well known, and that's why it surprised me that people were so unprepared for it. All I know is, if I was near a beach and the tides started to recede, I would get the hell away as fast as I could. I guess others just aren't as much aware of things like that as I thought.

Another possible reason is that animals, birds in particular, can detect magnetic changes that result from an earthquake. You always hear stories of all the dogs in a town barking right before an earthquake hits. It seems that animals on the ground either have the same sensibility, or can detect the changes in the birds' flight patterns.

[imenja]

24. How long does that take?

. . . for the water to recede and then come back in? My impression it isn't that long, not enough time for many to get very far away. Also, most people have never experienced a Tsunami before. It's not terribly surprising they wouldn't know what was going on. Such things are instinctual to animals, but not humans. There were reports of children gathering fish left on the sand as the tide receded.
How do animals detect magnetic changes? Is that something they feel or hear?

[antigone382]

26. Well, I guess it doesn't give as much warning as I thought

Here's a link to a National Geographic webpage that discusses Tsunamis:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1228_041228_tsunami.html

Experts believe that a receding ocean may give people as much as five minutes' warning to evacuate the area.

Here's an article from about.com that discusses how animals detect earthquakes, tsunamis, and other natural occurances that humans cannot, though it doesn't discuss magnetism. It mentions that scientists are trying to understand their behavior, to better predict earthquakes:

http://biology.about.com/od/animalbehavior/a/aa123104a.htm

Here's a website about animals' ability to detect magnetism:

http://www.physics.uci.edu/~tritz/Research/Magsense/magsense.html

I hope these are helpful! :)

Edited for bad html code

[spotbird]

31. Thanks, this is fascinating.

And very sad.

[imenja]

32. Thanks for the links!

Very interesting!

[tk2kewl]

2. It wasnt just the animals

native people did the same. it is a matter of living in harmony with your surroundings

we are so far gone you can forget about it

[masaka___]

20. Isn't it funny....

Isn't it funny that we call these native people "primitives"?

When I heard about how native people and animals were able to sense trouble and get out of harms way, it made me want to take a few steps back from my office job and get back to the basics....

[shanti]

25. the native people moved

BECAUSE the animals did. they have learned to observe them and take heed!

[nankerphelge]

3. They're more perceptive than we give them credit for

n/t

[spotbird]

6. But what did they perceve? nt

[Mabus]

4. It would be interesting to find out

when the animals started moving inland or going elsewhere for safety. Was the alarm of some animals, possibly sea or birds (flying overhead), that forewarned them? In otherwords, what animals left first? Things like that would start to give some clue as to what set them off.

[spotbird]

7. The strange behavior of the birds

could be it.

[Mabus]

14. Which were reacting

to the sounds of millions of screaming fish?

I know that animals as diverse as birds and turtles are sensitive to the earth's magnetic field. Do you think there was some type of disruption in the earth's magnetic field that they sensed?

[KG]

5. they were warned by the aliens that planted the nuclear device.

[Maple]

12. I assume you're joking

I don't think anyone else has ever said such a thing on here.

[imenja]

13. sorry to say you are wrong about that

Anything and everything has been said, independent of reason.

[pdxmom]

8. I heard Jack Hanna talking about this

And his theory seems to be that it's almost like a chain reaction. The lower level animals, that react to sensations (like fish) start to react differently. Then the animals that key on them (like birds) react to their reaction. And so it moves up the chain. Rapidly, of course. It's more heightened senses, from what he was saying, though he admitted that there were multiple theories and that they really aren't sure of the reason.

[CornField]

9. I grew up around trains

We had tracks all around our ranch. Our entire family could tell you roughly how long a train was by the sound of the wheels on the tracks. We could tell you when it was almost over. We could even tell you what it was hauling (coal, equipment, livestock, etc.)

There are a few sounds that I can still determine, but most are long gone. I no longer live around trains -- hear them all the time, see them, understand them.

When I lived on the ranch, I could also smell a storm coming. I can't do that anymore either -- I don't have to since I live in town and rely on instant doppler radar from the television.

The animals and people who live off the land (no benefit of weathermen, the internets, radios, etc.) have adapted to their environment -- just as we have. Consider: I can no longer smell a storm coming, but I can determine if an ambulance siren is coming or going.

[Lizzie Borden]

10. They just know...

After watching all kinds of animals all my life I've concluded that they have a sense about these things. I've got one dog who hates storms. Inevitably, he refuses to go outside hours before one arrives. Sense of smell? This is when the sun is shining and the sky is blue, and before birds start to behave differently.Animals have reportedly known about earthquakes before they happened. Can they hear something or feel something? Their senses are definately different than ours. I do believe that they have early warning.

[Gloria]

17. My little Tico does the same thing...he will hide under the desk

hours before it rains and thunders. I think he must sense the lightning that I can sometime see in the distance, way before it gets here.....

[antigone382]

23. Some trees' leaves curl before it rains.

They catch more water that way. Maybe your dog notices the change in the leaves, or maybe he senses the same change in the barometric pressure, humidity, etc. that causes the leaves to curl.

[poe]

11. arrogance of humanism

they knew

[HockeyMom]

15. Robbery

Several years ago my neighbor's house was broken into. They smashed in the door with a crowbar in broad daylight. Myself and several other neighbors were home at the time. We did not hear a thing. However, I was upstairs with my two cats. While I said getting dressed with the radio BLASTING, one cat froze in the middle of his tracks and then ran like lightening under the bed. The other cat ran at high speed down the stairs and into the basement. At the time, I could not understand what had frightened them so much. Nothing in OUR house was going on. When the police came to my house later that night to question me about the break in, I just mentioned in passing about my cats. They asked me WHAT TIME it was when the cats acted strange. The policeman used that time on his report as the POSSIBLE TIME of the robbery. He said to me, "Animals can sense and hear things that humans cannot. The cats probably heard that noise and knew it was not something NORMAL among the neighborhood sounds."

[roguevalley]

16. an experiment in England with people and their dogs yielded the

following results:

1. dogs slept while their owners were away.
2. they got up when the owners were coming home, even if they didn't see or hear anything.
3. and this was recorded on film, the dog would get up and wait for the owner at the moment they THOUGHT to come come, when the mental decision was made, even if the owner was far away.

Animals know things. That is why scientists study rat populations in the wild to predict earthquakes.

[masaka___]

21. I hope this line of research continues....

...because I strongly believe there is such a thing as non-physical senses beyond the 5 physical senses that we're familiar with.

There's a good book on this topic that I've been meaning to buy, too. It's called Primary Perception, and it discusses non-physical perception from the perspective of plants. I find this kind of work fascinating.

http://www.primaryperception.com

[poe]

18. don't forget the sky

five aboriginal tribes in the andaman and nicobar islands emerged unscathed from the tsunamis as the heeded the biological warnings of bird cries and change in behavioral patterns of marine mammals. they ran to the forests for safety. no casualties reported among these five tribes < jarwas, onges, shompens, sentinelese and great andamanese>. not only are our technologies despoiling the lifeblood for all creatures they are blunting our senses and increasing our level of arrogance. information and knowledge are no substitute for wisdom.

[spotbird]

19. The roaring sound may be audible to creatures before

humans can hear it.

[shraby]

27. We not too long ago found out how

elephants communicate over long distances. We need to be able to record a much wider range of sounds that are inaudible to our ears as well as spectrums of light that we can't see.
The info is there, we just have to find a way to record it and change it to something we can see and hear.

[Bouncy Ball]

28. My dog is terrified of thunderstorms

and she starts her scared behavior when I don't even have any clue a storm is anywhere near. She stays right next to me (under my feet), trembling, tail tucked under. The first few times she did this, I thought "Silly dog, there isn't even a storm!" and not 30 minutes later a HUGE storm right over us.

So now I know she must either:

1. have WAY better hearing than I do and can hear distant thunder before I can or

2. in some other way, she senses it.

Dunno.

[Behind the Aegis]

29. Animals

Most animals have heightened senses. The can detect changes in air pressure and such, so it is instinct for them to react. The also watch one another and react that way. I get really suspicious of a storm coming (sometimes I can smell them) when I don't hear any birds chirping or I see them flock to the interior branches of trees. It would be very cool to have some of the senses they have.

[KT2000]

30. before earthquakes

my cats run and hide before I hear anything or see the shaking.

once, before a meteor came into Washington, the birds were noisy then after it caused a boom and other noise, the birds were silent. They stopped and started at the same time.

[Tsiyu]

33. Homeostasis

Many humans have had the survival instinct bred or conditioned out of them. In a climate-controlled world, who even needs a weatherman?

If you look at the earth as a system, at the time of a tsunami, the marine animals would have a reaction, causing the offshore feeding birds to react, causing the land animals to react...

Nature protects itself. Humans are too arrogant in many cases to believe they even need protecting. Nature's "wisdom," as Anna Sewell wrote, is more perfect than ours.