While technology has often been a boon for those seeking warning against impending disaster, there’s increasing evidence that those in areas prone to threat from natural events that animals can also provide advance notice. After earthquakes or eruptions, eyewitness accounts and anecdotal evidence is filled with stories of animals behaving strangely or fleeing the area in advance, indicating possible enhanced senses or knowledge among these creatures.
Looking to take advantage of these possible innate skills, Martin Wilelski, director of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Konstanz, has put significant effort across his career into studying these events, according to an article in Wired. Using a set of tags that trace movements of animals around the globe, primarily for the purpose of studying migrations and ecology, Wilelski and his lab have assembled a huge volume of information that also can be mined for changes in animal behavior in the lead up to natural disasters.
According to the article in Wired, the most noteworthy study was performed using goats on Mount Etna, which showed the animals becoming unusually active in advance of eruptions, giving a method of detecting potential threats before even the sensors mounted around the volcano detected an impending threat.
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