Tracking the behavior of tagged animals to predict the weather has long been done, but scientists are now recruiting more animals in an effort to predict earthquakes, volcanoes and other natural phenomena.
A project team at the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior in Germany is recruiting thousands of dogs, goats and other farm animals – as well as a variety of wild animals – for studies that will track their movements from space.
The program uses small transmitters attached to mammals, birds and insects. The detailed movements of these creatures will be tracked by a dedicated satellite that will be launched in 2025.
The aim, the researchers say, is not only to study how they respond to impending natural events such as volcanic eruptions, but also to gain new insights into migration, the spread of animal diseases and the impact of the climate crisis.
“We hope to launch around six satellites and establish a global observation network that will not only provide detailed information about the movements and health of wildlife across the planet, but also reveal how creatures respond to natural events such as earthquakes,” said Martin Wikelski, the project’s leader.
The value of studying tagged animals in the region has been demonstrated in early experiments in Sicily on the slopes of Mount Etna, Wikelski said last week. The behaviour of goats is quite good at predicting major volcanic eruptions. Sensors have shown that animals become anxious before an eruption and refuse to move to higher pastures where they usually go.
Similarly, researchers have tracked dogs, sheep and other farm animals in the Abruzzo Mountains outside the Italian capital Rome and found that they also reacted in a way that predicted seven of the eight major earthquakes in the region over the past 12 years.
Stories of animals behaving strangely before earthquakes or eruptions are not new. The Greek historian Thucydides claimed that rats, dogs, snakes and weasels fled the city of Helice just before an earthquake in 373 BC. Similarly, the 1975 Haicheng earthquake in China occurred after snakes and rats were seen leaving their burrows.
