Cats Howl At Approaching Tsunami (Japan)

Japanese Bobtail Cats Predict Tsunami and Howl a Warning

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the domestic cat can predict certain disasters such as earthquakes. A visitor to my website said that her cat predicted an earthquake in America.  Scientists have yet to figure out how cats can do this if indeed they can do it.

In this instance, we have a large colony of cats on an island, Tashirojima, off the Japanese coast howling (caterwauling?) in unison at what we are told is an approaching tsunami.

Make sure that your cat is not near your computer when you play the video because he or she will quite likely be put off by the sound (the video is configured incorrectly, take note).  It seems that these cats are shouting a warning to other cats that a potential disaster is about to happen.  That is a guess and your guess is as good as mine.  But the people of this island, which, incidentally, is called Cat Island, stated that the cats behaved strangely before the tsunami hit land.

We are also told that the island escaped most of the damage unlike the nuclear reactor that was not too far away which was destroyed, you may remember, resulting in the evacuation of a large area around it and abandoned pets. The year was 2011.  The disaster was widely publicised.

Apparently, there are 3 times the number of cats on this island as there are people.  The island's name is highly appropriate.  Apparently the cats were introduced to the island to kill mice to prevent the mice from destroying silkworms which were employed in the textile industry.

Fishermen fish off the island and where there are fishermen there are fish and cats eat fish and so there was a source of food for the cats which allowed the colony to grow and before they knew what happened the people were outnumbered.

If you look at the video carefully you will see that the 2 cats in the foreground have shortened tails. As far as I'm concerned, these cats are genuine, Japanese Bobtail cats.  They are moggies but they are probably far more purebred than the most purebred cat fancy Japanese Bobtail in America.

The original Japanese Bobtail comes in all sorts of sizes and coats but we know that the favourite of the Japanese is the 3 colour or calico Japanese bobtail.