Scientists are always looking for ways to predict earthquakes. If an accurate prediction can be made far enough in advance people can be told to leave the area and lives can be saved.
Japan is one of the major earthquake areas in the world. You could say the Japanese are earthquake professionals.
So it is not surprising to learn that they have noticed a relationship between animal behavior and earthquakes.
Just before the 1855 earthquake a fisherman reported nervous catfish. They swam to and from in the water as oncoming quake. He hurried home and managed to save his family minuter before the tremor struck.
Catfish were also said to have acted in the same restless way just before the 1923 Tokyo earthquake.
So the scientists got busy. In the 1930 Professor Hatai at Tohoku at University set an experiment. He watched the behavior of catfish in the laboratory tanks. Day after day the catfish remained calm. They did not even react to finger tapping on the table that held their tank. Hatai noticed however that in 80 percent of the cases they became jumpy six to
eight hours before an earthquake. Hatai believes that catfish are somehow sensitive to electric currents in the earth.
These currents change before earthquake activity.