More on the active earth and animals!

With Katla and the earthquake activity that results during an eruption on my mind, , my thoughts are on an article published two years ago. Earthquakes and animal behavior have often been linked. Here is an example.

Toads Predicted China Earthquake May 17th, 2008 By susannah vila

A China buff lamented that the nation’s technological prowess had devolved. “Why, if the Chinese had come to know so much about earthquakes so early on in their immensely long history, were they never able to minimize the[ir] effects?” Why couldn’t they predict even a humongous earthquake like this one?

Maybe they could. Or, at least, their toads could. The buzz in the Chinese blogosphere is that two days before the quake, toads invaded a Sichuan Province town called Mianzhu. The mass migration was seen as an ill omen. Residents were scared, but officials dismissed it as completely normal toad behavior.

Toads weren’t the only creatures to outdo Chinese authorities in forecasting the earthquake. Cows flung themselves into fences, zebras banged their heads into doors, elephants threatened to bruise unwitting humans with their flailing trunks, lions and tigers paced, and peacocks screeched.