From the Toronto Globe and Mail, By Caroline Alphonso
Did animals forecast the disaster?
That's the question stumping wildlife officials in Sri Lanka, where the human death toll climbs daily from the worst tsunamis in memory, but there are few dead animals to be found.
Giant waves washed floodwaters up to three kilometres inland at Yala National Park, Sri Lanka's biggest wildlife reserve in the southeast and home to hundreds of wild elephants, wild boar and leopards.
"The strange thing is we haven't recorded any dead animals," H. D. Ratnayake, deputy director of the national wildlife department, said yesterday.
"No elephants are dead, not even a dead hare or rabbit," he said. "I think animals can sense disaster. They have a sixth sense. They know when things are happening."
The floodwaters uprooted trees and toppled cars. At least 40 tourists in the park drowned, adding to Sri Lanka's death toll of more than 21,000 people killed from the deadly earthquake and tsunamis that ravaged the region.
But an Associated Press photographer who flew over Yala National Park in an air force helicopter saw elephants, buffalo and deer, and not a single animal corpse.
News reports yesterday indicated that the animals could have fled to higher ground.
"Anything is possible," said Maria Franke, a conservation biologist and curator of mammals at the Toronto Zoo.
"Obviously we can't read animals' minds. We can only make assumptions by watching animal behaviour.
"Even people's dogs, they kind of know when a storm is coming before the storm hits. They start getting nervous and things like that," she said.
And then there's the fact that birds know their migration routes. "They definitely have these abilities. But do we humans know the extent? I would say no," Ms. Franke said.
Zoologists warn that the news from Sri Lanka is not enough reason for humans to start looking to the animals.
There is no scientific proof that animals can forecast weather patterns, they say.
Darryl Gwynne, a professor of biology at the University of Toronto at Mississauga who looks at animal behaviour, said there is some anecdotal evidence that suggests animals can sense an earthquake. But even that is filled with controversy, he said.
Could animals detect a natural disaster? "It could be possible," Prof. Gwynne said.
Insects, for example, have a sophisticated sensory system "that we can't even get our minds around," he said.
Also, animals living along rivers could be able to detect when trouble is approaching. "These are countries where you do get heavy rainfalls and flash floods. Maybe animals are responding to simply the sound of when you hear [something unusual], and just run like hell for higher ground," Prof. Gwynne said.
It's possible, but even he is not fully convinced.
"There are things like animals being adapted to brush fires and forest fires and moving away. It would be fantastic to find if there was some evidence that animals respond to earthquakes in such a way," he said.
