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Topic: Cats, dogs and earthquakes

Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 08-06-2016 07:59 PM

Since around last Monday, we've had a very nervous and out-of-sorts cat. She was running around the house, tail swishing, ears swept back, wriggling away and darting under something whenever I've tried to lift her and pet her, not eating as much as usual, running under the nearest piece of furniture in terror whenever she heard the a/c compressor start up, etc. etc. My wife wondered if this might indicate an earthquake on the way, because she remembers that her dogs behaved the same way when she was growing up in the same area, including during the days leading up to the Northridge 'quake.

At 9.40pm yesterday evening, there was a small earthquake about 15 miles east of here. I was at work in Santa Monica at the time; it must have been slight, because my wife didn't feel anything. Anyways, when I got back, she was completely back to her old self: relaxed, snoozing, purring, letting me hold her, eating normally, sleeping on our bed rather than running up and down the landing all night, etc. etc.

She's just over a year old and this isn't the first earthquake of her life: there was one when she was around a two-month old that caused light fittings to swing and loose stuff to rattle. IIRC, the epicenter was somewhere in Orange County (Irvine-ish?), but it was big enough that we felt it 50 miles or so away. I don't remember her being funny before that, but there again she was very young and hadn't really developed the consistent habits and routines she has now.

Has anyone else living in earthquake country noticed this about their cats and/or dogs? I was intrigued by this after Googling just now:

quote: Someone's blog about cats and earthquakes
Although there is an abundance of anecdotal evidence that cats have foretold the coming of an earthquake, there is no actual scientific evidence. The closest thing to scientific proof was an experiment conducted by a California geologist in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Jim Berkland predicted two earthquakes in California by tracking lost pet ads in the newspapers. Berkland's theory was that cats who knew there was a disaster on its way would run away from home to escape the coming catastrophe, and increased lost cat notices on the two occasions led him to predict the earthquakes. Yet even with experiments like Berkland's on the books and with cat families' testimonies, science continues to be skeptical, reasoning that cats act odd even on normal occasions but that no notice is taken until after the fact if a tragedy occurs.

Sure enough, some lost cat flyers have appeared on the lamp posts in our development in recent days, too, and reported on our city's nextdoor.com microsite. Thoughts?

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Mike Schulz
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 122
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: May 2007

posted 08-06-2016 08:15 PM

I know it's only anecdotal evidence but I swear that cats and dogs have a sixth sense. When I lived in Indiana growing up, our cats would always predict severe weather right before we got hit by a huge storm. While there hasn't been a significant earthquake since I've moved into my current location, my roommate says that her dogs always know before an earthquake hits, and I recall my former roommate's cat acting strange before a couple of smaller earthquakes when I lived over in Hollywood.

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Buck Wilson
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 894
From: St. Joseph MO, USA
Registered: Sep 2010

posted 08-07-2016 01:48 AM

I'm convinced they know stuff like that. I don't need scientific proof for something like that. How would they even test that? Just taking a cat out of it's home environment would skew the data to unusable.

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-07-2016 10:11 AM

I absolutely believe that animals can sense things like earthquakes and tornadoes and stuff like that.

Animals' ears hear differently than humans. Their noses smell differently and they can see differently. They can see, hear and smell things we can't.

Our cat hides under the bed when there is a thunderstorm. I don't think it's simply because he's afraid of thunder. I think that things like changes in air temperature and pressure trigger his flight response. Also, you've got to imagine what the sound of rain sounds like to a cat. It probably sounds like a million marbles dropping on a tin roof!

So, if a cat hides when there is a thunderstorm, for whatever reason, it's not a far stretch of the imagination to think that they can sense things like earthquakes before we can.

I also agree that there isn't a good way to definitively test the theory. If there was, somebody would have figured out a way to do it and would have proved it long ago.

If we could prove the theory, there would probably be thousands of cats and dogs stationed along the San Andreas Fault, being used as earthquake detectors! [Wink]

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-07-2016 09:43 PM

It probably can't be proven/repeated because each animal is different -- my wife used to have a Dachshund that was scared to death of flies, for example -- and as posted above, if an animal is taken from its home environment it may not "feel" the same things the same way. In short, there are just too many variables. But undoubtedly, they see/hear/feel things that we can't.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 08-07-2016 10:30 PM

quote: Randy Stankey
Our cat hides under the bed when there is a thunderstorm. I don't think it's simply because he's afraid of thunder. I think that things like changes in air temperature and pressure trigger his flight response.

Agreed completely. I'm also wondering, in the case of earthquakes, if the smaller weight and mass of her body compared to ours enabled her to feel vibrations in the ground leading up to the 'quake that mine just absorbed without my feeling anything.

quote: Randy Stankey
Also, you've got to imagine what the sound of rain sounds like to a cat. It probably sounds like a million marbles dropping on a tin roof!

It's also a case of what they're familiar with and what not. All the cats I knew when I lived in England couldn't care less about rain, because it rained all the time. One I had while I was growing up would even do his "territory patrol" when it was raining, come back through the cat flap totally saturated and dripping, and meow loudly until I attended to him with a hairdryer!

Here, however, where we only get serious rain probably on five or six days a year, the kitties are seriously spooked by it.

quote: Randy Stankey
If we could prove the theory, there would probably be thousands of cats and dogs stationed along the San Andreas Fault, being used as earthquake detectors!

Yup - the research institute shown in the opening scenes of Earthquake could let all its white-coated PhDs go, get a cat, and when the tail starts to swish and the ears hunched back, you call Charlton Heston and tell him that it's time to get out his shotgun!

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-07-2016 11:04 PM

From what I read, it is thought that cats visual/color sensitivity is skewed toward the green/blue end of the spectrum. They might not be able to see reds and yellows very well but some people think that cats might be able to see into the near-ultraviolet range.

A cat's hearing is much more sensitive than a humans and it likely goes up into the ultrasonic range. Some scientists think that the little pocket at the outer edge of the cat's ear is some kind of high frequency reflector. Nobody is completely sure but bats have a similar formation on their ears and we know bats can hear ultrasonic.

We all know that cat's and dog's sense of smell is much more sensitive than a human's.

It is also known that earthquakes emit give of very low frequency vibrations and, likely electrical signals before we actually feel the trembler.

It's a no-brainier to hypothesize that cats and dogs can sense things that occur well before humans can perceive.

I like what Leo said... That animals can become acclimated to things in their environment. That would likely confound any efforts to prove or disprove the theory.

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Jim Cassedy
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1661
From: San Francisco, CA
Registered: Dec 2006

posted 08-08-2016 09:45 AM

My old cat could definitely sense earthquakes, even the small tremors
we sometimes get here in San Francisco. I live on a hill (as do half the
people here in SF, I guess) and there is both a firehouse and a hospital
nearby at the top of the hill.

The large SFFD ladder-truck or the huge oxygen & chemical delivery trucks
rumbling up the steep hill in first gear would send tremors through my old
(1926) building which felt almost exactly like one of those small quakes.

Living in the back of the building, away from the street, the tremors from
small quakes and the rumbling of large trucks felt exactly the same to me.

But the cat had could always easily tell which was which. He ignored the
trucks, but would suddenly look 'spooked' & sometimes hide under a table
or bed if it was a small quake.

I remember having a friend over one day and she turned to me & said:
"Why is your cat acting so strange". Neither of us had felt anything, but,
sure enough, on the news later that day was a report that San Francisco
had experienced a small (richter 2-3) tremor at almost the same time my
cat was 'acting strange".

I live in a part of town known as "The Richmond District". Out here, we rate
small earthquakes not by the Richter Scale, but by the "Richmond Scale" -
- which is the number of BMW car alarms that it sets off.

Once you get the hang of it, it's usually as accurate as the quake scale
ratings from the USGS.

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Byron Cabezas
Film Handler

Posts: 7
From: Santiago,region metropolitana/Santiago ,Chile
Registered: Nov 2012

posted 08-08-2016 10:35 AM

I can assure you that animals in general strangers behave before an earthquake, I am the most seismic country in the world and the largest earthquakes recorded in the last 8.8 Richter my dog, one minute before barked desperately and running nervous this was before the event at 3:32 am on February 27, 2010.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 08-09-2016 12:43 AM

quote: Jim Cassedy
I live in a part of town known as "The Richmond District". Out here, we rate small earthquakes not by the Richter Scale, but by the "Richmond Scale" - which is the number of BMW car alarms that it sets off.

Giggle. Reminds me of a car ferry trip I took in 1993 across the English Channel; Roscoff to Plymouth, so right across a patch of water where the Channel meets the North Atlantic, which can, and on this occasion did, get somewhat lively. Car alarms with motion detectors had just started to become commonplace, and their owners hadn't twigged to the fact that arming them after driving onto a car ferry might not be a very cunning plan. More or less as soon as we'd cleared the harbor wall, about 400 alarms started wailing on the car decks below us. Passengers were absolutely forbidden from entering the car decks during the voyage, so they wailed on for the remainder of the eight-hour crossing, until the cars' batteries died, one by one.

Upon arrival at Plymouth, several hundred vehicles with dead batteries had to be pushed or towed off the boat. I felt somewhat smug at having boarded it as a foot passenger, being able to stroll off down the gangplank and onto the quay for a short bus ride home (I lived in Plymouth at the time), while a lot of vehicle owners were looking at a very long wait before they could be on their way.

The next time I went on a Channel ferry, which was in the early '00s, it was in my car and there were big notices all over the car deck telling you not to arm your alarm, so by that time it was a known problem.

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