Posted on 12/28/2004 11:53:24 PM PST by Jet Jaguar
COLOMBO, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Sri Lankan wildlife officials are stunned -- the worst tsunami in memory has killed around 22,000 people along the Indian Ocean island's coast, but they can't find any dead animals.
Giant waves washed floodwaters up to 3 km (2 miles) inland at Yala National Park in the ravaged southeast, Sri Lanka's biggest wildlife reserve and home to hundreds of wild elephants and several leopards.
"The strange thing is we haven't recorded any dead animals," H.D. Ratnayake, deputy director of the national Wildlife Department, told Reuters on Wednesday.
"No elephants are dead, not even a dead hare or rabbit," he added. "I think animals can sense disaster. They have a sixth sense. They know when things are happening."
At least 40 tourists, including nine Japanese, were drowned.
The tsunami was triggered by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean on Sunday, which sent waves up to 5-metres (15-feet) high crashing onto Sri Lanka's southern, eastern and northern seaboard, flooding whole towns and villages, destroying hotels and causing widespread destruction.
They left, Jim.
No offense to Mr. H.D. Ratnayake, but I think the people there have better things to do right now than tally up dead animals.
They were inland drinking mai tais and making jokes about dumb tourists...
I absolutely believe that.
I think humans have a lot more intuitive skills than they put to good use. Generally we are too busy to pay attention to the little things. In this type of a situation, those on or very near the beach probably ignored some vital signs that could have warned them of the danger soon to overtake them.
It would be interesting to understand the mechanism that animals used to avoid this situation.
ping
Instinct
While you and I would generally agree with what you said, I'll bet that if we were on scene and removing the human remains, at some point it would fairly scream out at us, that although we had removed hundreds of dead humans, not a dog, cat, rat, cow, horse or other animal seemed to be amongst the dead.
That would seem rather earie to me.
Many of the interviews I've seen have had the people mentioning the classic signs of impending tsunami strikes, but they were ignorant of what they were observing. Also, how many elephants were at the beach?
I hear the fish were doing fine.
they got eaten by people who were stranded and hungry
Elephants tend to go in the off season. They don't like the large crowds.
This may lead to some of the best evidence yet of animals sensing an impending quake.
No, out of all animals thnk the fish were worst affected. Millions were marooned on dry ground when tides went out and therefore died....
All animals are perceptive to changes in the environment; even those of which they're not consciously aware. The nervous system becomes inured to the status quo, and responds when background stimuli reach a threshold beyond the norm. Certainly changes in seismic conditions would stress animals, and there might even be a built-in mechanism that would cause them to move to higher ground.
It would be damned interesting to be able to get feedback from human survivors of this devastating incident to see whether any of them experienced any inexplicable stress immediately after the earthquake hit; or whether domestic animals showed any unusual signs of distress.
Thanks for your report on the animals. I'd agree with you about the need for an elementary system. How hard could it be to interrupt the local popular radio stations and broadcast a warning to evacuate the beach areas for a few hours?
-PJ
yet hippopotami were dragged out to sea from inland rivers in Kenya. Suppose there was little they could have done about that, though.
bump
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