15 January 2009

Swedish cows make lousy earthquake detectors- Official!

According to The Local (an English language Swedish news website) data gathered during a recent Swedish earthquake has determined that that cows in Skåne are frankly rubbish at detecting earthquakes. They were so bad they hardly even noticed the shaking beneath their feet, thus disappointing researchers who suspected the animals had an innate ability to detect natural disasters.

Researchers from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) had hoped that sensors placed on a number of cows from a herd (totalling eight cows) in southern Sweden would reveal interesting clues about how the animals behaved before and during the quake. “Very little, almost nothing, points to the cows having any advance awareness of or feeling the effects of the earthquake,” said the SLU’s Anders Herlin . “One can probably say that, as a species, cows are not the world’s most earthquake-sensitive animals,”

Ah well perhaps chickens will do better....

6 comments:

RobW said...

Hmmm...

Did they think Cows had evolved to survive earthquakes. They live in the middle of fields how much is going to fall on them?

Sometimes I worry about the sanity of scientists.

James Higham said...

Bloody cows - always let you down in a crisis.

CherryPie said...

I think maybe putting sensors on my work colleagues would have a better result.

I number of years back when there was a quite severe earthquake in our area, several people thought a bomb was going off and one even hid under the desk!!!

jams o donnell said...

Haha Rob

True James, not one cow has ever supported me

Your colleague would not have done that with me around Cherie. I would have been under there first!

Steve Bates said...

Chickens... or maybe Cow-ifornians...

jams o donnell said...

Haha Steve!