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Lakewood Times

    Can Animals Predict Earthquakes

    Can Animals Predict Earthquakes

    Pet owners have wondered if their pet or even wild animals knew when a disaster is coming. If they can sense it, like when a serves dog senses a seizure is about to happen to their owner.

    Since there no solid evidence yet on if this is true, people are still skeptical. Heiko Woith, a seismologist at the GMZ, said its likely abnormal behavior from animals can be reactions to fore-shocks.  It’s not exactly an earthquake, but violent tremors.

    To further the question, “Can animals predict earthquakes”,  Woith did an evaluation on over 700 published reports of unusual animal behavior among 130 species from earthquakes. the reports showed that tiger got upset before an earthquake happened.

    Even though people have done reports, they were done poorly. To do a well done report on animal behavior you usual observe the animal before, during, and after the earthquake. But with the reports Woith evaluation, he noticed some weren’t done properly.

    Luckily the other reports measured within a 62 miles of the epicenter and within 60 days of an earthquake. Meaning the results were remarkable, according to Woith. He says with the reports, it proves that at least some of the abnormal behavior of animals might be related to foreshocks.

    Another article says that very few humans notice smaller P waves, but since animals have more keen senses, they are able to sense the P wave seconds before the S wave arrives. Meaning they don’t really sense a upcoming earthquake days or weeks before.

    Different articles say different things, it won’t be known for certain that animals can predict earthquakes until more research is done.

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