TALLAHASSEE DEMOCRAT (Florida) 16 January 05 Animals were bellwether in Florida hurricanes
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...Like the elephants, buffalo and deer of South Asia that fled to high ground well ahead of the last month's tsunamis, many Florida animals have shown they can predict hurricanes and take steps to survive them....
...The hurricanes of 2004 avoided the southeastern tip of Florida, home to endangered American crocodiles. But judging from past experience, the reptiles would have known how to handle whatever nature threw at them.
In 1992 Hurricane Andrew scored a direct hit on the crocodiles that live in the cooling canals of the Turkey Point power plant in southern Miami-Dade County. But when the storm passed, not a single dead crocodile was found. No one knows where they went, whether to open water or the bottom of 20-foot canals.
"There was no diminishment of nesting activity," Mazzotti said.
Not all animals could avoid danger. Last year's hurricanes wiped out about half the sea turtles nests in Florida, washing them away or burying them in sand. Many bald eagles returned to the state this winter to discover their nests were destroyed. After one of the hurricanes that passed over Lake Okeechobee, 30 to 40 dead alligators were found along the northwestern shore, Mazzotti said.
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Animals were bellwether in Florida hurricanes
