While tens of thousands of people along the Sri Lankan coast were killed by the tsunami, wildlife officials say that they haven’t found any dead animals. The waves swept inland to the island’s largest wildlife reserve but none of the elephants, tigers, jackals, crocodiles, or other animals drowned. From the BBC:
Debbie Marter, who works on a wild tiger conservation programme on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, one of the worst-hit areas in Sunday’s disaster, said she was not surprised to hear there were no dead animals.
“Wild animals in particular are extremely sensitive,” she said. “They’ve got extremely good hearing and they will probably have heard this flood coming in the distance. There would have been vibration and there may also have been changes in the air pressure which will have alerted animals and made them move to wherever they felt safer.”