They say that animals can sense that a storm is coming. They run for the hills. They fly away. Still, the massive March 11 Japan earthquake and tsunami seems to have done its fair share of damage to wildlife, too. While the human victims in Japan are foremost on our minds these days, animals affected by the earthquake and ensuing tsunami also are an issue. Many animals are dead. Many others need help.
In Hawaii, the tsunami from Japan was blamed on the deaths of thousands of seabirds. The waves flooded a remote Hawaiian atoll called Midway. At least 1,000 Laysan albatross were killed, drowned or buried by 5-foot-high waves. Albatross chicks also were killed, which may hurt breeding populations in 2012.
In all of this, a 60-year-old albatross, fittingly named Wisdom and the oldest known bird in the U.S., got out of harm's way in time and survived, the BBC reports.
Pets also were affected. Our friends at Animal Planet report that there are several ways to help pets in the wake of the tsunami. Those include donating to Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support, to help provide shelter space and coordinate some earthquake/tsunami animal rescues.
Back to sensing, National Geographic News offers accounts of wildlife running for higher ground and pets that refused to go outdoors before a 2005 tsunami that affected Sri Lanka and India.
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