Pandas Sensed China Quake Coming?

In the minutes before a massive earthquake shook central China on Monday, captive pandas near the epicenter began acting strangely, according to an eyewitness account released today. (Watch video.) The observation, made by a British tourist who had been watching the pandas at the famous Wolong National Nature Reserve near Chengdu, mirrors previous accounts of animals "sensing" disasters before they occur.

Diane Etkins told the Associated Press that the pandas "had been really lazy and just eaten a little bit of bamboo, and all of a sudden they were parading around their pen.

"Looking back they must have sensed something was wrong."

(Read: "Can Animals Sense Earthquakes?" [November 11, 2003].)

Etkins and 30 other Britons were evacuated to the provincial capital of Chengdu after the magnitude 7.9 earthquake devastated the remote mountainous region, toppling towns and killing more than 19,000 people.

Twelve Americans, part of a tour of China sponsored by the conservation group WWF, were also visiting the breeding center when the earthquake hit. All of the tourists survived the quake, WWF confirmed to National Geographic News on Wednesday.

"It certainly was a surreal experience going through a 7.9 … earthquake surrounded by 25 pandas all sort of reacting to that as well," one of the Americans, Robert Liptak, told the Associated Press.

The 86 captive adult pandas were unharmed by the disaster, and an unknown number of cubs were moved to a safer location in Shawan, a main town in Wolong.

Odd Behavior

Accounts abound of both domesticated and wild animals behaving oddly before major natural disasters.

In 2005, elephants screamed and ran for cover and zoo animals rushed into their shelters before a tsunami struck Sri Lanka and India.

The giant waves killed more 150,000 people in a dozen countries, yet few animals were reported dead—suggesting that the animals reacted early to the impending disaster, experts said. Animals have extraordinary sensory perceptions that exceed those of humans, said Diana Reiss, a professor at Hunter College in New York who studies animal cognition.

For instance, many animals can see and hear beyond human capabilities. Snakes can feel seismic waves from their burrowing prey. And some scientists have found that elephants may even be able to "hear" through their feet, Reiss said.

Many of these highly developed senses developed as survival tools in the wild, Reiss said.

"It would be important for animals to use as many cues in the environment as possible to predict an impending disaster," she told National Geographic News.

However, Reiss warned about reading too much into the apparent strange behavior of the Wolong pandas.

"These are interesting observations, but to really determine whether they are responding to something seismic … we would have to know more about what their normal behavior is," she added.

Marc Brody, president of the U.S.-China Environmental Fund (USCEF), works on panda conservation.

"I would think that animals certainly have a stronger sense of perception than humans in terms of their natural environment," he said. "When I think of a panda and their four broad feet on the ground, one would think they feel tremors before we do."

Brody, who has received funding from the National Geographic Society, added that animals' general ability to hear at different sonic wavelengths may attribute to their early warning systems. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)

Sybille Klenzendorf, director of species conservation for WWF, said "it's not an uncommon phenomenon for animals to get nervous when big storms or tsunamis come."

The Chinese earthquake is the "same sort of thing. [Animals feel] changes in the environment—vibrations that we don't feel."

Animals such as pandas are "more in tune with their sixth sense"—an ability humans probably had in the past, Klenzendorf said. "But we've lost that kind of sensitivity," she added.

Wild Pandas

The famed Wolong National Nature Reserve, which stretches for 772 square miles (2,000 square kilometers) across rugged mountain terrain of central China, includes the largest population of captive giant pandas in the world. (See photos of the Wolong pandas.)

More than 1,590 wild pandas also inhabit the reserve, and their fate is still unknown, China's state-run media agency, Xinhua, reported Thursday.

But USCEF's Brody said that those animals are likely unhurt in their native habitat.

Suzanne Braden, director of U.S.-based Pandas International, told the Associated Press on Monday that the wild pandas were probably fine.

"The wild pandas, they can sense things," she said.

"I'm sure they moved to higher terrain. But captive pandas do not have that luxury."

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Study: Will rising ocean submerge part of South Florida?

Sebring - Polar bears and their melting habitat sent a wake-up call to South Florida water managers Wednesday.

The same day the federal government added the polar bear to the endangered species list because of global warming, South Florida water managers agreed to take a yearlong look at how melting ice could raise sea levels that could claim the southern part of the state.

The South Florida Water Management District's long-term plans once anticipated the sea level rising about 1 foot by 2100, but more recent projections say the rise could be five times as much.

That could move the southern tip of Florida's mainland to the Tamiami Trail and submerge swaths of some of the most populated areas along the southeast coast.
From flooding to more saltwater seeping in and fouling drinking water supplies, climate change is an issue that needs more attention, said Jayantha Obeysekera, who will lead the district's global warming review.

"We cannot put up walls and stop the sea level," Obeysekera said. "Let's start looking at it [and] see what our vulnerabilities are."

On Wednesday, district officials called for spending $100,000 over the next year to study the threat of climate change.

The district, which has a $1.3 billion budget, might need to do more, governing board member Charles Dauray said.

Though Dauray said his skepticism about global warming remains, he also said a rise in the sea level could factor into decisions about whether to pursue seawater desalination plants and how to proceed with Everglades restoration.

"We might be coming to some pretty important forks in the road," Dauray said. "We better look at it pretty seriously."

Board member Michael Collins said $100,000 would be a good start until more is known about climate change.

"The data is all over the map," said Collins, who represents the Florida Keys.

Even if the worst-case scenario doesn't play out, a less dramatic rise in the sea level could create problems for South Florida, said Carol Ann Wehle, executive director of the agency.

If the sea level rises 2 feet, the vast system of drainage canals that relies on gravity to keep South Florida dry will not work, Wehle said. That would mean investing in pumps to push water out to sea, she said.

Saltwater from the ocean for decades has been seeping in and threatening freshwater wells near the coast. The district might need to consider creating new well fields farther inland, Wehle said.

In addition, the state and federal government are in the midst of a multibillion-dollar effort to restore water flows to the Everglades. Rising sea levels could mean changing those restoration plans, she said.

Climate change is the biggest challenge the district, and all governments, must face, board member Shannon Estenoz said.

"We don't have the luxury of waiting," Estenoz said.

Coincidently, the district's governing board on Wednesday met in Sebring, northwest of Lake Okeechobee, which Board Chairman Eric Buermann pointed out was once Florida's southern tip.

"It may be again," Buermann said.

Andy Reid can be reached at abreid@sun-sentinel.com or 561-228-5504

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Is the Polar Bears’ Predicament a Sign of Things to Come?

What has happened over the past couple of decades that has landed the mighty polar bear on the "threatened" list under the Endangered Species Act? Scientists believe that at least two-thirds of the world's polar bears will be gone within 40 years. The U.S. Geological Survey has confirmed that the biggest concern for the bears’ future is the shrinking Arctic sea ice, which is quickly reducing the size of the bear’s habitat. Heightened controversy over the status of the polar bear is tied to the fact that this is the first time a species has been considered for listing specifically because its habitat is threatened by global warming.

"This decision is a watershed event because it has forced the Bush administration to acknowledge global warming's brutal impacts," said Kassie Siegel, climate program director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

But some say the decision is just lip service and ignores the real issues. Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Massachusetts, Chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming told CNN in that "After years of delay, the Bush administration was forced to face the reality that global warming has endangered the polar bear and that the polar bear needs to be placed on the Endangered Species Act. But the administration has also simultaneously announced a rule aimed at allowing oil and gas drilling in the Arctic to continue unchecked even in the face of the polar bear's threatened extinction. Essentially, the administration is giving a gift to Big Oil, and short shrift to the polar bear."

There are currently around 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears now in the Arctic wild. The polar bear population had actually been recovering since the late 1960’s thanks in part to another protective law, the Marine Mammal Protection Act. However, the “best scientific data available” from the U.S. Geological Survey and other organizations, indicates that bears’ luck is about to run out. They are now having an increasingly difficult time, which will only worsen. They are a species that is “likely to become endangered of extinction within the foreseeable future” due to the worrisome trends with Arctic ice. Overall, scientists believe the future is not a bright one for the bears.

In announcing the new threatened listing, Secretary of the Interior, Dirk Kempthorne, seemed to be feeling a little threatened himself. He was very quick to point out that the decision should not be "misused" to regulate global climate change. Kempthorne also quoted US President Bush on the matter trying to reemphasize the fact that the burgeoning oil and natural gas development in the region should not be blamed.

"Listing the polar bear as threatened can reduce avoidable losses of polar bears. But it should not open the door to use of the Endangered Species Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, power plants, and other sources," said Kempthorne. "That would be a wholly inappropriate use of the ESA law. The ESA is not the right tool to set U.S. climate policy."

Kempthorne’s wording seemed to reflect concessions common to the overall climate debate. Beliefs about global warming seem to be largely split two ways. The vast majority of scientists believe the accumulated evidence indicating that global warming will have dire consequences to Earth’s diverse biology, but big industrial companies and lobbyists, along with a small minority of scientists, say it’s either nothing to worry about or it’s something we can’t do anything about either way.

Critics say that oil companies and industrial lobbyists are too quick to downplay human involvement in climate change say that they are primarily motivated by greed and that there stance is both short-sighted and dangerous. A “lets wait and see” attitude doesn’t cut it for many scientists who believe that without immediate and considerable action to stem the effects of man-made climate changes, it could quickly become too late.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) comprised of climate experts from around the globe, the Arctic Sea could be ice-free in the summer by as early as 2040, and that winter ice depth may shrink drastically. The IPCC also predicted that once global oil production peaks between 2008 and 2018 there will be a global recession. Once “Hubbert's” Peak is reached, global oil production will begin an irreversible decline, possibly triggering a global recession, food shortages and conflict between nations over dwindling oil supplies, the IPCC predicted last summer.

But for now it’s the Arctic that is really feeling the heat. According to a recent PBS report “there's no doubt the Arctic is warming. In fact, this extreme region has warmed faster than any other on earth, with the Arctic temperature increasing three to five times faster than the Earth as a whole over the past 100 years. Climate models predict that the Arctic will become an additional 7 to 12 degrees Fahrenheit warmer during the next century…With the Arctic experiencing the most rapid and severe climate change on Earth, the plants and animals that have evolved to survive in this extreme habitat come increasingly under threat. Like the canary in the coalmine, the Arctic can serve as our early warning sign of impending climate change. Observing the tumultuous change its inhabitants are experiencing can be a lesson to us about the changes in store for the rest of the world.”

Posted by Rebecca Sato

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