People all over the world have reported frightened animal behavior in the lead-up to natural
disasters for millennia.
Could these signals be used to alert us of looming disasters?
Even today, no one can predict when or where an earthquake will strike.
Eyewitnesses, on the other hand, have consistently claimed that animals behave abnormally before
an earthquake.
And recently, something unexpected happened in Mongolia that has scientists baffled.
What was this strange occurrence, and what does it indicate for the future?
Stay with us to the end to discover more about this weird animal behavior in Mongolia!
In 2004, a tsunami triggered by a 9.1 magnitude underwater quake off the coast of Indonesia
ravaged coastal communities across the Indian Ocean, killing at least 225,000 people in
a dozen nations.
The fact that many villages received no notice contributed to the high death toll.
Local man-made early warning systems, such as tidal and earthquake sensors, did not issue
a clear warning.
Many sensors were out of commission due to maintenance concerns, and many coastal regions
lacked tsunami warning sirens.
Haphazard communication also failed to convey warnings, with many Text messages either not
reaching or going unread in threatened locations.
Yet, in the minutes and hours before surging walls of water up to 9m (30ft) high broke
through beaches, some animals appeared to detect oncoming danger and attempted to flee.
Elephants fled to higher ground, flamingos abandoned low-lying nesting locations, and
dogs refused to go outside, according to eyewitness testimonies.
Locals in Thailand's seaside village of Bang Koey recounted a herd of buffalo on the beach
suddenly pricking their ears, peering out to sea, and stampeding to the top of a nearby
hill only minutes before the tsunami arrived.
"Survivors also reported seeing animals, such as cows, goats, cats and birds, deliberately
moving inland shortly after the earthquake and before the tsunami came," says Irina Rafliana,
a former member of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk (UNISDR) advisory
group and now a researcher at the German Development Institute in Bonn.
"Many of those who survived ran along with these animals or immediately after."
Rafliana tells similar accounts from her fieldwork in the aftermath of other disasters, such
as the 2010 tsunami caused by an undersea earthquake off Sumatra, which killed over
500 people on the Mentawai Islands.
However, certain animals, such as elephants, were claimed to have responded as if they
had prior awareness of the incident.
A newly re-released turtle made an abrupt U-turn just two days before Tonga's volcanic
eruption in January.
Many locations that are frequently hit by natural catastrophes lack early warning systems.
The World Meteorological Organization discovered in 2017 that the governments of over 100 nations
still lacked early warning systems for natural disasters to which they were vulnerable.
However, reports of animal behavior prior to natural disasters have motivated some academics
to dedicate substantial scientific attention to the hypothesis that animals may have inbuilt
mechanisms that signal them to coming natural disasters.
It begs the question, could animals serve as natural early warning systems for humans?
The earliest recorded reference to strange animal behavior preceding a natural disaster,
dates back to 373 BC, when the Greek historian Thucydides observed rats, dogs, snakes, and
weasels fleeing the city of Helice in the days preceding a devastating earthquake.
Other reports are scattered throughout history.
Minutes before the 1805 Naples earthquake, oxen, lambs, dogs, and geese allegedly began
emitting alarm calls in unison, while horses were claimed to have fled in fear moments
before the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
Even with improved technology, many kinds of approaching natural disasters might be
impossible to detect.
In the case of earthquakes, for example, seismic sensors jolt into jolted squiggles only when
the earth-juddering shocks occur.
Making reliable forecasts requires precursor signals, and scientists have yet to discover
any that appear to occur consistently before large earthquakes.
As a result, some scientists are becoming more inclined to accept unconventional warning
signals, such as animal behavior.
Now, according to a video that was posted on the Twitter account of the People's Daily,
which is linked with the Chinese state, on November 16, the flock of sheep had been walking
in an almost concentric circle for 12 days on a farm in the territory that is controlled
by China.
Not long after the original report, others came forward to say that sheep had been seen
performing the same way, with claims coming in from the United Kingdom and Mongolia.
Local farmers were perplexed as to why the sheep were behaving in this manner for extended
periods of time.
According to one farmer, it happens every now and then but never lasts more than an
hour.
The original footage of the sheep was shot in northern China and quickly went viral after
the sheep were observed travelling in a clockwise circle for 12 days, which had never been witnessed
before.
Locals in the region, as well as those who saw the video, were mystified as to why the
sheep were acting this way.
Interestingly, when the video was circulated on social media, additional farmers came forward
to say that their livestock had been acting strangely and travelling in circles.
One farmer in the United Kingdom said that their sheep began meandering in circles shortly
after the video was posted.
The farmer stated that he occasionally notices his livestock acting strangely, and that the
circular motion is something that has only recently begun to occur, prompting him to
wonder what would have caused this.
The internet hurried to fill the void with some claiming an X-Files episode was in the
works, or that the sheep had entered a "death spiral", while others claimed it was just
sheep doing what sheep do and following the leader.
A more reasonable explanation was that the sheep had listeriosis, a neurological disease
caused by a bacterium typically found in cattle feed and soil, but more frequently in rotting
vegetable debris and muck.
The Listeria monocytogenes bacteria causes an asymmetrical infection in the brain stem,
resulting in paralysis of one side of the animal's face and persistent circling, earning
it the term "circling disease" According to Andrew Fisher, a professor of cattle and sheep
production medicine at the University of Melbourne, there are a lot of indicators that circling
illness is not the cause of the behavior exhibited in the video.
"They'd show a variety of circling and other neurological conditions and they'd get quite
sick — some would die," Professor Fisher explained.
"The way it usually manifests are not in half the flock — it's sort of between 1 and 10
per cent might be affected."
Listeria-infected animals likewise do not travel in concentric circles, but instead
loll in their own manner.
Professor Fisher speculated that the animals may have acquired a behavioral response to
being kept in a small, constrained space.
He claims that in the past, zoo animals could demonstrate "stereotypical pacing" when kept
in small enclosures with minimal stimulus.
"In that scenario, they have a very defined or consistent, unvarying pathway."
However, he stated that, while we can't be certain, there is a more likely explanation.
"One suspects there's more going on behind the video that we don't see," he remarked.
Emma Doyle, a cattle expert and lecturer at the University of New England's School of
Environmental and Rural Science, expressed it more clearly.
"As soon as I looked at it, I thought, 'I've never seen sheep act like that,'" said Dr.
Doyle.
"It seems a bit dodgy.
It looks sort of set up where they've put something in the middle to stop them going
in."
Dr. Doyle believes it is exceedingly unlikely that sheep could construct such a flawless,
concentric shape without some kind of influence.
The other, more serious issue is that numerous media outlets said the animals had been completing
circles "non-stop" for 12 days.
"They're not going to go 12 days without water and food," stated Dr. Doyle.
The suggestion is that the animals are leaving the circle to get some food and drink before
returning.
"It's very mysterious and at first look, a little hoax-y to me," Dr Doyle remarked.
"If it's real then I stand to be corrected."
With natural disasters, particularly earthquakes, being so difficult to predict, these findings
pose the question: could humans genuinely predict earthquakes based on animal observations,
and thereby warn people of their impending arrival?
Despite the frigid weather, hundreds of snakes slithered out of their hibernation dens in
the weeks leading up to the February 4, 1975, earthquake in the Chinese city of Haicheng.
The conduct of the reptiles, along with other instances, prompted authorities to evacuate
the city hours before the catastrophic quake.
For millennia, humans have reported odd animal behavior in the days leading up to seismic
events: dogs barking ceaselessly, cows halting their milk, and toads leaping from ponds.
A few researchers have attempted to establish a relationship.
In a 2013 study, German scientists videotaped red wood ants that nested along a fault line
and discovered that before a quake, they modified their typical schedule, becoming more active
at night and less active during the day.
According to a 2018 Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America analysis of 180 previous
investigations, most such attempts have relied heavily on anecdotal data and isolated observations.
Researchers from Germany's Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and the University of Konstanz,
along with a worldwide team of collaborators, claim to have precisely measured increased
activity in a group of farm animals prior to seismic activity.
Though no clear relationship has been established, the scientists believe their findings are
an important step forward in the hunt for one.
"There are old tales from Aristotle and Alexander von Humboldt who saw this behavior," says
research co-author and managing director of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
Martin Wikelski.
“But only now can we do continuous biologging of the activities and the nervousness of animals.
The technical possibilities are finally there.”
According to the researchers, the farm animals appeared to predict tremors anywhere from
one to twenty hours in advance, reacting sooner when they were closer to the source and later
when they were further away.
This observation, the authors argue, is consistent with the concept that animals detect a signal
that spreads outward.
Shifting tectonic plates push rocks along a fault line in the days before an earthquake,
according to the theory.
This movement causes the rocks to release minerals that expel ions into the air, which
leads the animals to react to the novel sensation.
So, what do you believe is causing this weird behavior, and why do you think the sheep are
acting this way?
Is something big about to occur?
Tell us in the comments section.