Can goats predict earthquakes? Dogs a volcano about to blow? Scientists say yes

Seconds before our bomb shelter alert started my dogs came to paw on the front door to be let inside. It’s as if they know something is coming before we do. “There are many anecdotes about animals being able to foresee disasters such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but hardly any systematic studies,” says Martin Wikelski, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Radolfzell and professor at the University of Konstanz. “But scientists in this field don’t have it easy, either,” he grumbles. “One can quickly be dismissed as a sort of diviner.”

He is investigating the use of animals to predict events where technology fails or is not available and is part of a research group called Icarus to investigate these questions.

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He would like to test whether animals can be used as biological early-warning systems for natural disasters such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. He’s even had his idea patented: the project, which he submitted to the European Patent Office with the support of the technology transfer company Max Planck Innovation, is called DAMN (Disaster Alert Mediation using Nature). Insurance companies have already expressed interest.

He tells the story of Rome and that people were lying peacefully in their beds as danger approached from the north. The Celts were marching toward the city, threatening to destroy it. The geese woke sleeping inhabitants with their loud quacking and thus saved the Capitoline.

Today, every guide book on Rome includes the story of the vigilant geese, but this story is by no means the only example of animals prophesying impending doom. Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder, who died when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE, reported that birds become restless before earthquakes. In modern times, too, we’ve seen time and again animals behaving strangely before natural disasters – and such diverse species as elephants, dogs, snakes, toads, fish, bees and even ants.

In February 1975, near the Chinese metropolis of Haicheng, numerous snakes were seen that had slithered out of their hideaways in the middle of winter and frozen to death in the snow. Shortly thereafter, the city was rocked by earth tremors with a magnitude of 7.3. The residents were evacuated in time due in no small part to the reptiles’ abnormal behavior.

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In March 2009, at San Ruffino Lake in Italy’s Abruzzo region, the toads that are normally found here in great numbers suddenly disappeared in the middle of the spawning season. A few days later, an earthquake destroyed the nearby town of L’Aquila.

“When animals go crazy, run away from the sea and go to the highlands,” advises an Indonesian children’s song. It comes from Simeulue island, off the coast of Sumatra, close to the epicenter of the quake. Because the inhabitants had learned from their ancestors to correctly interpret the behavior of chickens and water buffalo, they were able to save themselves from the tsunami. Despite enormous property damage, there were only a few deaths on Simeulue.

Wikelski records animal migrations and behaviors around the globe. His focus isn’t restricted to migratory birds, but includes a broad range of wildlife. Using radio transmitters, he tracks storks on their way from Europe to Africa, monarch butterflies on their journey from Canada to Mexico, and the wanderings of rodents that disseminate seeds in the South American rainforest.

The small tachographs the scientist uses for this can not only report the exact GPS coordinates of the wearer, but also measure acceleration in different directions. This enables the researchers to draw conclusions about the animal’s behavior.

“This technology allows us to conduct our observations around the clock,” says Wikelski. “If we attach transmitters to different animals in regions prone to natural disasters and record their behavior, we can subsequently find out which animals would have redicted, for example, a volcanic eruption or an earthquake.”

Then the researchers could, in the future, use these candidates as an early-warning system.

Wikelski and his colleagues launched an unusual field trial in April 2011. “If we want to study how animals behave before a volcanic eruption or an earthquake, we can’t do it in the lab,” the researcher explains. “We have to actually wait for such an event to occur.”

Although Etna is one of the best researched volcanos in the world, it has not yet been possible to reliably predict such events over the long term – especially as regards the intensity of the eruption. Martin Wikelski and his colleagues thus wanted to find out whether there are animals that can do this better.

In their search for suitable candidates, the scientists also turned to ancient myths for inspiration: “Originally, we really did consider geese,” recalls Wikel ski. “Then we asked locals who have been living with their animals at the foot of Mount Etna for generations. They said: Forget the geese, use goats instead!”

The people in the region knew their animals extremely well and thus knew that they have a keen instinct for impending natural phenomena. “A shepherd then promptly made eight goats available to us,” reports the behavioral scientist.

Most of the time, the animals live in small herds on the slopes of the volcano. They are driven into the valley only twice each year. The scientists used one such opportunity to fit the goats with transmitter collars in place of the bells they would normally get. Weighing 390 grams, the devices, which Wikelski had specially produced for the experiment, record both the exact GPS position and the acceleration on three axes and allow the data to be read via a local radio network.

Back home on their computer, the researchers can access the data and, using special software, visualize the movement patterns and the behavior of the goats on the monitor.

Whether the animals sleep, eat, run or jump over the lava rocks – each of these behaviors produces a characteristic acceleration pattern.

They confirmed that Wikelski’s idea actually worked: whenever a major eruption was imminent, the animals were already perturbed hours before, running up and down or hiding under bushes and trees when they had the opportunity.

The International Space Station is about to receive a small antenna to carry out the work to try and measure and understand nature’s 6th sense.

::ICARUS

(This article was summarized from an article produced by the Max Planck Institute for ICARUS)