This is interesting.

Did they know something humans didn't?

[ 01. January 2005, 10:16 PM: Message edited by: Ferret1959 ]

maybe god tipped them off

God?

I think I'll be getting myself a pet elephant.

Wild meaning in the wild, maybe but, caged animals can only go where the cage goes

Lucky critters!

What a nightmare. Have been washed off the rocks before and washed down the river but that was 4th div compared to this.Seen the photo with bodies piled up on the beach,what can you say - it is someones dad/mam/sister /bro/son/ daughter etc
I will now do my minutes silence!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The human environment is different to the natural environment.

So many heavy objects just waiting to be picked up and mashed together with bodies.

So many heavy walls, never meant to withstand a force greater than the vertical load they carry, tumbling down and crushing.

But the natural environment is built to withstand other forces, rooted trees bend. Being washed into a the softer embrace of a bush is different to being churned together with cars and boats and motorbikes and all the other debris of civilisation.

If such a wave was to wash over me, I'd much prefer to be out in the open in a nature reserve, than on a busy city street.

The human instinct to run for the cover of the nearest building is probably not the best survival instinct in such a situtation.

That probably goes some way to explaining the comparative lack of animal casualties.

Though it didn't help the stingray whose body was shown on the TV, dumped inland some fair distance from the sea, and left by the sea to desicate in the sun.

Tight Lines - leon

[ 02. January 2005, 09:44 AM: Message edited by: Leon Roskilly ]

just a you said human enstinct is the run for cover me or to take pics and rolling a camcorder.
seen 1 pic in a paper you see the wave and this woman was running to get her kids. i hope they survived but doubt it.
animals know when to get out apart from the domestic ones.

I was in Morocco a few years ago and was surprised at the amount of cats and dogs roaming about in the restraunts, evidently there was a great earth quake many years ago and all the cats and dogs left town before it struck. Many lives were saved by following the pets out of town.

saw on the news today the lady suvived and her family,from sweden i think.

Well, they bend up to a point - I live on Ashdown Forest, and experienced the 1987 Michael ("there aint gonnabe no hurricane") Fish storm at first hand.

What was interesting was that about half the pine trees destroyed by the storm were snapped off halfway up the main trunk, whilst the other half were torn up by the roots. This would seem to indicate that trunk thickness and root growth are in some sort of balance to hold the tree against "normal" storms - ie it is no good having strong roots and a weak trunk, nor a massive trunk and shallow roots.