Pigeons Refuse to Fly Before Earthquakes
Pigeons sometimes refuse to leave their coops before earthquakes strike. Keepers before the catastrophic 1908 Messina earthquake reported their homing pigeons stubbornly staying grounded. Their remarkable magnetic sense potentially detects geomagnetic anomalies that often precede seismic events. This unusual grounding behavior confused pigeon keepers until the disaster explained everything. Some research programs now monitor pigeon behavior as part of experimental earthquake prediction systems.