Question about effect of tsunami on marine life

I hadn't watched the news for a while, and I certainly hadn't heard about the latest stranding of whales in Australia.

Most definitely something is not right. Yesterday at Kelly Tarlton's (where Kat was working prior to her holiday) I noticed that the sharks were behaving very strangely in the tanks - hyperactive, darting everywhere (I'd never seen them like this before), their snouts grazed from hitting the tank walls. Apparently they'd been that way for a couple of days .... Sure, a number had 'love bites', so it could be that time of the year ... but even the folks at Kelly's commented that their behaviour was unusual.

I need to think .... and need data.
 
More on the lack of animal deaths:

Tsunami adds to belief in animals' 6th sense

31 December 2004

JOHANNESBURG: Wild animals seem to have escaped the Indian Ocean tsunami, adding weight to notions they possess a "sixth sense" for disasters, experts said yesterday.

Sri Lankan wildlife officials have said the giant waves that killed over 24,000 people along the Indian Ocean island's coast seemingly missed wild beasts, with no dead animals found.

"No elephants are dead, not even a dead hare or rabbit. I think animals can sense disaster. They have a sixth sense. They know when things are happening," H D Ratnayake, deputy director of Sri Lanka's Wildlife Department, said on Wednesday.

The waves washed floodwaters up to 3km inland at Yala National Park in the ravaged southeast, Sri Lanka's biggest wildlife reserve and home to hundreds of wild elephants and several leopards.

........

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3143749a12795,00.html

I'm still sceptical as their doesn't appear to be a mechanism but it wouldn't be the first time we make the observations and then discover the cause :wink:

Emps
 
And leading cryptozoologist Loren Coleman has suggested we might see globster reports or unknown sea creatures washing up - I'll quote in full:


2004-12-30 - Wireless Flash Weird News

Tsunami Stirring Up Waves Of Sea Serpents

PORTLAND, Maine (Wireless Flash) -- The recent tsunami in south Asia is stirring up lots of relief efforts -- and it could also be splashing all sorts of unknown sea creatures onto the shoreline.

Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, co-author of "The Field Guide To Lake Monsters And Sea Serpents" (Tarcher/ Penguin), predicts that relief workers will soon be finding a large number of "globsters" on area beaches.

"Globsters" is the term given to big masses of round flesh that measure between eight and 20 feet. Although the globs look like octopi, Coleman says they are often previously-undiscovered species of sea serpents, dolphins or whales.

Coleman says human relief efforts must take priority but fears that clean-up workers may destroy the carcasses of new creatures before scientists can identify them.

He hopes that workers who come across any strange sea creatures photograph them and post the photos online so they can be researched after humanitarian efforts are finished.

Bizarre sea creatures aren't the only new animals that could be uncovered by the tsunami: Coleman says many undiscovered land animals may also be identified as they move to higher ground to avoid flooding.

Source
 
This thread is fascinating. Concerns about reef die off due to the silt deposited on the reefs were voiced in the papers here right away. Phil's point about fossil formation is fascinating.


Steeve, your description of the sharks is fascinating.

An anecdote about non-ceph animals and earthquakes: Friends in California claimed that their cats and dogs behaved strangely before earthquakes. I will embarrass one of my Thai friends by asking the elephant handlers here if their elephants were upset Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Melissa
 
Emperor said:
I have been pondering the connection with the spate of whale beachings at the end of November. . . . . I suspect the 20 odd days between the beachings in Tassie and NZ and the quakes is too great a lag time but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Why should there be any connection? Whales end up on beaches for many reasons, always have done an will continue to do so. At the same time birds fly into windows, possums & hedgehogs cross the road with fatal results - are these terrestrial misadventures caused by some mysterious connection with the rumblings of Gaia ?

Just like we never hear about the people who are pushed out to sea by dolphins . . . . . .
 
:sad: I've been following this thread. The arial shots of all the different areas affected are unbelievable. Tonight a news crew was going to different remote islands that have been wiped out with before and after pics. I can't even begin to comprehend the long term affect on not only the people but the ecosystem.
 
myopsida said:
Why should there be any connection? Whales end up on beaches for many reasons, always have done an will continue to do so. At the same time birds fly into windows, possums & hedgehogs cross the road with fatal results - are these terrestrial misadventures caused by some mysterious connection with the rumblings of Gaia ?

Quite.

You'd need to look at the frequency of beachings in the area and then see how statistically likely it is and it would still not prove cause and effect.

I've still found no good evidence that animals have any more idea an earthquake is coming than we do and I'm not aware of any other linkages between quakes and beachings (although thats not to say there aren't :wink: ). As I said I'm just throwing it out there and seeing what comes of it :wink:

Emps
 
Well, I don't know if it is "knowing before" per se...perhaps they are somewhat more tuned in to subtle differences than we are...I do know for a fact that my parrot will start to panic squawk (which is rare, thank god, as it is deafening) prior to tremors, usually by about one hour or so...I still think the bird can hear/feel the rumblings before they show up on scanner...if I lived in California, this bird would be long gone !!!
greg
 
This might be going off topic wildly but following on from discussion on the whale beachings there were other unusual things going on in the NZ area as well as earthquakes - icebergs:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3151291a7693,00.html

They appear to be a symptom of global warming and although they may not be directly connected with oceanic faunal movements (although their calving might disturb the local wildlife) they must be a symptom of increased ice cap melting which injects large amounts of fresh water into the ocean. Here in the UK we are concerned that Arctic melting may disturbing the thermohaline circulation of the North Atlantic Drift current. There is a nice site showing the processes here:

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/thc/

Again just throwing it in as something that might be disturbing the distribuiton of the aquatic food chain.

Emps
 
I've been reading (on aquaticinfo list I think) that many of the rare turtles such as the Ridley may never recover. The Marine Biological Station on Phuket reports that their breeding stock and all the holding/breeding ponds/beaches etc are gone. And many of the turtles that are being found are seriously injured :sad: :cry:


J
 

Shop Amazon

Shop Amazon
Shop Amazon; support TONMO!
Shop Amazon
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Back
Top