ABSTRACT
The climate is changing, with more extreme environmental events, such as storms and earthquakes, becoming more common. Human activity, including the continued burning of fossil fuels, is exacerbating this problem. There is, therefore, a need to have ways to understand how the environment is changing and to predict what might be about to happen in the short term. Evidence stacks up that the observation of animals may be helpful here, despite all the technologies and instrumentation that exist.
The observation of animals should not be taken in isolation, with plants and other environmental factors important too. However, such observations need to be used in context – rain may be good in one location, but bad in another.
Even though it is still not fully understood what many animals may be sensing, more research in this area may be useful to inform the production of more predictive tools in the future. Animals seem to react to climatic and environmental change, and perhaps it is timely for this to be taken more seriously.
