Author(s)

Masashi Hayakawa^1,2*, Hiroyuki Yamauchi³, Nobuyo Ohtani³, Mitsuaki Ohta⁴, Susumu Tosa⁵, Tomokazu Asano¹, Alexander Schekotov⁶, Jun Izutsu⁷, Stelios M. Potirakis⁸, Konstantinos Eftaxias⁹

¹Hayakawa Institute of Seismo Electromagnetics Co. Ltd., UEC (University of Electro-Communications) Incubation Center, Chofu, Japan.
²UEC, Advanced Wireless & Communications Research Center, Chofu, Japan.
³Department of Animal Science and Biotechnology, Azabu University, Sagamihara, Japan.
⁴Department of Human and Animal-Plant Relationships, Tokyo University of Agriculture, Atsugi, Japan.
⁵Kagawa Prefecture Livestock Experiment Station, Kida, Japan.
⁶Institute of Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.
⁷Department of Electronic Engineering, Chubu University, Kasugai, Japan.
⁸Department of Electronics Engineering, Piraeus University of Applied Sciences (TEI of Piraeus), Athens, Greece.
⁹Department of Physics, University of Athens, Athens, Greece.

After the 2011 Tohoku earthquake (EQ), there have been numerous aftershocks in the eastern and Pacific Ocean of Japan, but EQs are still rare in the western part of Japan. In this situation a relatively large (magnitude (M) ~6) EQ happened on April 12 (UT), 2013 at a place close to the former 1995 Kobe EQ (M~7), so we have tried to find whether there existed any precursors to this EQ, especially abnormal animal behavior (milk yield of cows), observed at Kagawa, Shikoku, near the EQ epicenter. The milk yield of cows has been continuously monitored at Kagawa, and it is found that the milk yield exhibited an abnormal depletion about 10 days before the EQ. This behavior has been extensively compared with the former electromagnetic precursors (ULF radiation, ionos-pheric perturbation). This leads to the discussion on the sensory mechanism of unusual behavior of mild yield of cows, and it may be suggested that ULF radiation among different electromagnetic precursors is a mostly likely driver, at least, for this EQ.

Abnormal Animal Behavior, Earthquakes, Milk Yield of Cows, ULF Radiation, Sensory Mechanism of Animals

Hayakawa, M. , Yamauchi, H. , Ohtani, N. , Ohta, M. , Tosa, S. , Asano, T. , Schekotov, A. , Izutsu, J. , Potirakis, S. and Eftaxias, K. (2016) On the Precursory Abnormal Animal Behavior and Electromagnetic Effects for the Kobe Earthquake (M~6) on April 12, 2013. Open Journal of Earthquake Research, 5, 165-171. doi: 10.4236/ojer.2016.53013.