Wayanad Landslides: Indeed Many People Died, Wild Animals Are Less Troubled (image: Pixabay)
Can animals warn humans from disaster ? When the humanity was numbed by the massive devastation of Wayanad landslides, there is something to revolve about – that only few wild animals got killed. Locals shared they saw elephants retreat to safer places hours before the catastrophe.
The Animal Husbandry Department reports that almost 150 cattle , 75 goats perished in the landslides. But not many wild animals had lost their lives in Chooralmala and Mundakkai.
“Animals can definitely foresee any disaster that are going to happen, But humans are not ready to observe it,” SR Easa Environment specialist said.
Continuing further, he said: ” When I got a chance to talk with Chatthan, an Adivasi in Kattappana, he told that there were already signs of disaster going to happen. The smell of the water in the near by stream was changed. And also his pet dog got disturbed and was restless. Though he warned his neighbors, only a few listened to him.”
Meanwhile, wildlife activist MN Jayachandran told manoramaonline that, the relatively low death toll inside the forests was not a surprise. “It has been scientifically observed that animals in the wild are more alert to an impending natural disaster. When the tsunami struck Andaman Islands in 2004, wild animals had climbed up the hills to the safety of the top,” he said.
He then detailed him attending the post-mortem of one of the tigers found dead in the forest. The tiger’s stomach contained fresh prey, indicating that it had just eaten a heavy meal and was resting when the floods struck. He explained that even a tiger can be subdued for a while after a heavy meal. The reason for almost every animals that are died have some explanation like this.
A 2022 BBC report detailed how animals predicted disasters. The report mentioned an important investigation led by Martin Wikelski and his team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany that found evidence that the farm animals began to change their behaviour up to 20 hours before an earthquake.
About 2,28,000 people were killed as a result of the 9.1 magnitude earthquake happened in 2004; following, a tsunami struck off the coast of Indonesia. “Survivors also reported seeing animals, such as cows, goats, cats and birds, deliberately moving inland shortly after the earthquake and before the tsunami came,” Irina Rafiana, sociologist and researcher, German Institute of Development and Sustainability told BBC.
Similarly, International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW)’s disaster resilience project in Bali uses the unusual movement of wildlife as part of the early warning system for predicting eruptions of the nearby volcano Mt. Agung. While science is unclear on what causes certain animals to flee, this unusual movement has been traditionally reported by village elders and continues to be a part of this community’s disaster preparedness.
It seems even when advanced technology may fail in detecting many kinds of upcoming natural disasters animals could foresee it. The tradition beliefs may reconsidered in light of such numerous studies and observations.
(Sana Zubair has produced this article as part of a Timeline Internship Programme)
