The Day of the Cricket
When my son was little we built a cricket house to test whether insects had any value when it came to predicting earthquakes.
Experiments dealing with the subject were being conducted at the time in what was known as Red China. I felt those of us in what was called the Free World should get in on the action too.
The cricket house had wire-mesh windows and even an interior doorway in which a tiny creature could cower if its instincts so directed.
Our rationale was that if the cricket should suddenly rush to the doorway for no apparent reason, an earthquake was probably on the way.
I think today we are told to forget standing in a doorway for safety and dive under a heavy table. If none is available, we are to run into the street screaming and praying.
At any rate, my son and I monitored the insect for weeks. Then one day, a neighborhood cat named Oscar ripped off a piece of mesh and ran off with the cricket in its mouth, which effectively ended the experiment.
However, and this is important, the very next day there was an earthquake of fairly substantial magnitude!
We had discovered quite by accident, as scientist often do, the Cat and Cricket Method of earthquake prediction.
I mention this today because a method of equal credibility was presented Thursday by geologist Jim Berkland at a meeting of an Assembly Committee on Earthquake Preparedness.
He found by studying newspaper lost-and-found ads that if an inordinate number of dogs and cats are reported missing during a single period of time, a sizable earthquake almost always follows.
The reason he gives is that household pets are sensitive to “foreshocks” and depart in panic when the earth moves even slightly.
That oversimplifies his research somewhat, but then oversimplifying is what I do for a living.
The committee, which met in L.A., was chaired by Assemblyman Rusty Areias (D-Los Banos), who seemed unimpressed with Berkland’s theory. At one point, referring to the missing dogs and cats, he asked, “Where do they go, Ed?”
I think he was suggesting there might be a kind of Bermuda Triangle for pets who flee in advance of a temblor, from which they never return.
“I don’t know where they go,” Berkland responded testily. “Call Animal Control.”
It’s easy to laugh at a guy who makes earthquake predictions based on lost-and-found ads, but I’m not even grinning.
Anyone who writes humor has to be ever vigilant of not offending true believers, and Berkland is certainly one.
I wrote a column in Oakland once that spoofed religious miracles, including the Immaculate Conception. An editor informed me in a voice as cold as ice, “The publisher does not think the Virgin Mary is funny, and if you desire to remain a columnist, you won’t either.”
It’s a lesson I’ve never forgotten.
Another reason for not mocking Berkland is that his system is probably as valid as anyone’s when it comes to predicting earthquakes.
We all know that dogs have highly sensitive otolithic organs that can detect imperceptible noises, which is why they howl at distant thunderstorms.
My own dog has no such ability, but we’re talking about animals of average intelligence, not one that stands in front of the refrigerator barking at the ice maker.
There have been other experiments over the years relating to the prediction of earthquakes, but nothing as dramatic as fleeing cats and dogs.
Scientists have noticed, for instance, that otherwise even-tempered domestic birds suddenly peck their babies to death just before a tremor of any kind. It must be hell for the babies when a truck passes.
In explaining why cats and dogs run before a quake, Berkland compared it to someone saying, “Hey, let me out of here!” while fleeing from a swaying building.
Most humans, unlike animals, eventually return home, but that’s a question of instinct, not loyalty, for which reason we similarly do not peck our babies to death during times of travail.
Berkland’s final thought for the day was to predict earthquakes of magnitudes up to 5.5 near both San Jose and L.A. in the near future.
When Areias reacted with skepticism, the geologist replied somewhat airily, “The proof of the pudding is in the shaking, not in complaining about the recipe.” Oh.
Well, I’m not too concerned about earthquakes, but if the cat came in carrying a cricket for no good reason I might start praying to the Virgin Mary again.
You can’t be too safe.
