Asia-Pacific, Civil Society, Development & Aid, Economy & Trade, Environment, Global, Global Geopolitics, Headlines, Labour

Wild Seismic Predictions Disputed

Malini Shankar

BANGALORE, Feb 15 2011 (IPS) - Without in-depth scientific documentation of marine mammal strandings, natural history and animal behaviour, the prediction of seismic events based on behaviour of marine mammals is not widely accepted. Sceptics often dismiss such predictions as conjecture.

“Despite vast amounts of data collected in the U.S., it is impossible to definitively suggest that strandings and natural calamities are connected; marine mammals strand for various reasons,” says Mridula Srinivasan, marine biologist and researcher at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Arunachalam Kumar, dean of the K S Hegde Medical Academy in Mangalore, on India’s west coast, is convinced however that the beaching of marine mammals is a harbinger of earthquakes.

Kumar predicted the boxing day earthquake – which resulted in the tsunami of Dec. 2004 – in a posting he had made on the Princeton University Natural History E-Group three weeks before the calamity.

Analysing the stranding of 90 pilot whales off the coast of Tasmania in Nov. 2004 Kumar wrote on Nov. 29: “In my observation, confirmed over the years, mass suicides of cetaceans… are related to disturbances in the electromagnetic field coordinates and possible realignments of geo-tectonic plates thereof. By calibrating the epicentres against dates of strandings, I am reasonably certain that major earthquakes usually follow within a week or two of mass beaching of cetaceans….”

On Dec. 26 an earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale struck – and triggered the tsunami that left 230,000 people dead around the Indian Ocean.

Sarang Kulkarni, an Indian oceanographer is among the sceptics. “I don’t buy the theory that whale strandings are indicative of impending natural calamities because how many whale strandings have occurred without an earthquake following?” Kulkarni told IPS.

Nevertheless, “on the day of the Asian Tsunami the street dogs in Port Blair in Andaman Islands (India) were so timid, submissive and frightened… they followed me from village to village,” admits Kulkarni.

“The recent whale strandings of a pod of whales near the New Zealand coast on Aug. 20 portends a major earthquake on land or undersea within two to three weeks from the date of the event,” Kumar wrote in his blog on Aug. 23, 2010. “This month end (August 2010) or early next month there should be a quake or massive volcano in the Indonesian archipelago.”

Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung, a 400-year-old volcano previously classified as extinct, erupted on Aug. 29 and an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale struck New Zealand on Sep. 4, 2010.

There is no “re-constructible natural history behaviour” to credibly quantify these predictions, according to the United States Geological Survey (USG). On an average, 1,200 to 1,600 whales strand on the U.S. coasts alone, according to a study initiated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Intuitive animal behaviour needs further statistical documentation, stresses Kumar.

“Wildlife behaviour before natural calamities still remains conjecture,” Wildlife Institute of India’s Dean V.B. Mathur told IPS. “However… a decade ago, when we were preparing to ride an elephant into the Kanha Tiger Reserve, it refused to be harnessed by the Mahout (elephant trainer). Four hours later we learnt of an earthquake in Indonesia – the Mahout later ascribed the elephant’s nervousness to the earthquake.” The distance between the Kanha Tiger Reserve in Central India and Indonesia is at least 2,000 kilometres.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has reported that “no birdcalls were observed” early in the morning during the Mount St. Helens volcanic eruption of 1980. Nicobarese in India also observed that there were no birdcalls during the dawn preceding the 2004 earthquake that triggered the tsunami.

The first documentation of animal behaviour prior to earthquakes was in 373 BC – historians documented rodents and snakes deserting the Greek city of Helice days before a quake.

In 1975, based on strange animal behaviour, Chinese officials evacuated Haicheng, a city of one million people, days before a 7.3-magnitude quake – diminishing fatalities.

Sri Lanka’s Yala National Park had minimal wildlife casualties in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami. Radio-collared elephants were recorded moving inland an hour before the tsunami lashed Sri Lanka. In India, save for the death of two spotted deer in Tamil Nadu, there were no wildlife casualties from the tsunami.