The Quake as Seen by Our Friends the Animals : Some Freaked Out, Others Were Cool

Danny the sea lion was an emotional wreck, a lemur was so traumatized that she ran into her nest box and wouldn’t come out, and over at the mechanic’s shop in Santa Ana, Fat Boy and Nemo reacted like exotic parrots always do under stress.

“They freaked,” said Jim Salisbury, owner of Metric Wrench garage and a fancier of strange bird life. “They jumped from their perches and flew down to the floor . . . stayed right down there and quivered. Then they (relieved themselves) on the floor.”

If the earthquake that hit Orange County like a freight train Friday rattled more than a few nerves among residents, imagine the reaction of the dogs and cats and wildlife less versed in the complexities of seismic activity.

Salisbury, who lets Fat Boy and Nemo have the run of the place during the day, said it didn’t take long before the parrots got over the shaker.

“God in his infinite wisdom gave the birds the ability to fly, but they also are really stupid. They got over it pretty quickly,” Salisbury said, explaining that Fat Bird was some type of parakeet from Afghanistan and Nemo was a dwarf ringneck macaw.

“At least that’s what they said when I bought Fat Boy, that he was from Afghanistan. That’s as far north in the world that parrots come from. But I don’t know. He may be something else. I looked him up in a book and he didn’t look like he was supposed to. He’s a parrot or parakeet or something. Whatever he is, he’s OK now.”

At Friends of the Sea Lion in Laguna Beach, general intelligence seemed to be the determining factor in how the elephant seals and sea lions reacted.

“We have three elephant seals, and, well, they’re kind of not real bright,” said director Judi Jones. “They were outside, in a Jacuzzi with cold water . . . they didn’t notice it.”

Nor did the harbor seal and sea lions splashing about in their own outdoor pools. But Danny, a recently arrived sea lion being kept inside the institute’s barn until his temperament can be determined, reacted differently.

“He sat bolt upright on all four flippers, his eyes were huge like saucers, and he was looking up at the ceiling,” said Jones, who talked to the ailing sea lion until he calmed down. “He was aware something really weird was going on.”

At the Santa Ana Zoo, officials saw the daytime quake as a rare opportunity to see how their animals would handle the violent ground movement.

“Our animals reacted quite a bit,” said zoo director Claudia Collier. “The monkeys started vocalizing, and so did the birds. One of the monkeys--well, actually a black-and-white-ruffed lemur--ran into her nest box . . .

“We’ve got no damage though--just a keeper who wants to look at jobs on the East Coast.”

Over in Anaheim, where the shaker was not felt as violently as in Newport Beach or Costa Mesa, 307 Belgian Tervurens participating in a best-of-breed show at the Inn at the Park Hotel took it all in stride. When the temblor hit, the dogs didn’t budge from their spots in the cool shade.

And at Russo’s, “World’s Largest Pet Store” in Newport Beach, clerk Valerie Hacker said: “We had some water flying out of tanks and all the bird cages came off the shelves. There were birds in them. They were fine, though.”

“The dogs didn’t freak out too much (except for) the one in the front cage,” Hacker said. That pooch, a Lhasa apso “was jumping up and down and running all over the place. It’s not normal for him to be that hyper.”

Times staff writer Michael Cicchese contributed to this story.