64 lines
3.0 KiB
Plaintext
64 lines
3.0 KiB
Plaintext
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This article was taken from USA TODAY.
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Thursday, November 9, 1989
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ANIMAL INSTINCTS AT CENTER OF QUAKE DEBATE
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By Steven Jay
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Special for USA TODAY
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During the week before the October 17, 1989 San Francisco
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earthquake, Dolores Denilla had a problem, snakes. They kept
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slithering out of the creek near her Watsonville home; she had to kill
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14.
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"It was weird because maybe one comes out of the creek a year," she
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said. In Vallejo, at Marine World Africa USA, the llamas were
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restless October 17. When handler Jennifer Deffenbaugh tried taking
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them for a walk, "they spit at me and tried to kick me."
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In Santa Cruz, Beverly Strite's 6-year-old dachsund hid under the
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bed six hours before the quake. Dozens of stories circulating like
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these have produced the latest aftershock: renewed debate about
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whether the earthquake predictors should be looking again to animals.
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The federal government in the early 1980's stopped financing
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research on the once-popular theory on grounds it was a crackpot idea
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and not as helpful with long-term predictions. Yet the man drawing
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most attention for predicting the Oct. 17 quake was Jim Berkland, a
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Santa Clara County geologist who relies on animals. Although the
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quake was bigger than he predicted - he forecast a 6.0, compared with
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a 7.1 - his timing was on the money: between Oct. 14 and 21.
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Berkland made his prediction on Oct. 13. He was put on
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administrative leave because he's not supposed to make earthquake
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predictions. "Nature has an awful lot to tell us but unless we have
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our ears, eyes and minds open, we won't hear," he says.
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Joan Gillespie of Campbell, Calif., claims his prediction saved her
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up to $6,000 in china and crystal. "I don't care if he reads corns or
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bunions. I listen because he's been right too often," Gillespie says.
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But Roger Hunter, a U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist, studied
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Berkland's findings and "concluded he wasn't doing better than
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chance."
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Some mainstream earthquake predictors are willing to consider
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Berkland's approach.
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In 1975, Chinese scientists successfully predicted a major quake on
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the basis of snakes emerging from underground dens and strange dog
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behavior.
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Calvin Frederick, a UCLA psychiatric professor, has studied
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household animals and thinks they react to building vibrations. Nick
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Corini, a Morgan Hill pigeon-racing buff, lost 26 pigeons before the
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quake.
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"These are birds that don't lose their way. When someone comes
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talking about lost dogs and cats you tend to be skeptical, but
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(Berkland has) made a believer out of me."
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Submitted for KeelyNet by : Ronald Barker
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