Will The Solar Eclipse Cause Strange Changes In Animal, Human Behavior?

“A Chow pup ran frightened under a shed and could not be coaxed out,” reads an observation recorded during a total solar eclipse in 1932. The observation is one of hundreds collected during the eclipse that year on the behavior of animals during the rare event. When day suddenly turns to night during the total solar eclipse on Aug. 21, most animals aside from humans won’t have any idea what is transpiring. Some animals, primarily those that reside outside, will notice the change but pets that live indoors likely won’t even notice the eclipse.

Once the moon moves between the sun and Earth and briefly blocks the sun’s light from reaching anything in the path of totality those animals and people in the path will experience night-like conditions. Animals that live outdoors might exhibit slightly different behavior than usual during the eclipse, but it’s hard to know what to expect.

“I think it’s gonna vary between I would say animal to animal, organism to organism, with the larger animals or larger organisms, except for humans, not really being that affected,” Sergio Arispe, an animal biologist and assistant professor at the Oregon State University extension service in eastern Oregon, told International Business Times.

The eclipse will cross 14 states in the continental United States, first in Oregon cutting right across the country to South Carolina before it heads out into the Atlantic. The states it will be crossing are full of open space and farmland where livestock and wild animals are staples, but Arispe doesn’t think the eclipse will impact them much. “When it comes to larger animals, cattle, horses, livestock, sheep, deer… Some of these animals are dependent on the sun from a reproductive standpoint,” Arispe said, “But that’s not gonna be detrimental or effected in two minutes. It’s gonna be so acute, so miniscule in the life of that animal that it’s not gonna affect those processes.”

But smaller animals might present some out of the ordinary behaviors. In 1932, the United States saw a total solar eclipse just like the one expected next week. But the 1932 eclipse covered parts of the Northeast like Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. During that eclipse the public, game wardens and naturalists all recorded observations about animals and their surroundings and submitted them for a journal article, said Arispe. This journal article was published in 1935 entitled “Observations on the Behavior of Animals during the Total Solar Eclipse of August 31, 1932,” and it can still be accessed online.

Multiple observations recorded during the eclipse note cricket activity, several observers even said the cricket noises were all they could hear during the eclipse, according to the article. Other observers including some beekeepers who noted that as the darkness increased and totality came closer their bees returned to their hives in larger groups and more and more rapidly than usual as if preparing for night time.

Household dogs were reported to exhibit all sorts of different behavior, one person reported that the dog seemed “quieter than usual” while another observer said their dog acted as it does when it’s time to turn in at night. The behavior of the dogs was so variable that it doesn’t point to one specific behavior. House cats didn’t exhibit any odd behavior either, “In general no very obvious reaction appears that seems directly attributable to the eclipse,” says the article.

While the observations are interesting to read through, they’re not exactly any indication of how animals will act this time around, “These were individual observations and definitely not science,” said Arispe. But if they were observed once, there’s a chance they could occur again. “I would say these are a few observations but they were observed. So there’s a chance they could happen again...” Arispe explained, “I wouldn’t dismiss what has been reported in the past.”

But overall there’s no particular behavior Arispe is on the lookout for. “Honestly, there’s no expectation that there’s gonna be any behavior that could be measured,” Arispe said.

The behaviors of some animals are unpredictable, but there is one species sure to alter its behavior drastically during the eclipse, that species being humans. “It’s the people that’s gonna be effected, this is gonna be unprecedented in the number of people who will be observing and recording,” he told IBT.

Millions of people are expected to flock to the states where the eclipse will be visible in its totality, some are even spending hundreds or thousands of dollar on flights. That alone is an out-of-the-ordinary behavior. But some of those people also have certain activities planned for during the event. A group of people who believe in a connection between Christianity and marijuana are planning to burn oil in the country’s largest Roman Catholic Church in Washington, D.C., during the eclipse, reported U.S News and World Report. The oil will have THC, or the compound responsible for the high marijuana offers, in it.

Other religious groups like one in South Carolina will hold day-long rituals to relieve themselves of burdens from the past and bless the future. Using the eclipse as a way to sort of cleanse oneself. And guides for eclipse meditation or cleansing have been popping up online in preparation.

Some states in the path of totality have issued warnings that smoking marijuana is still illegal during the eclipse. The Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police posted a press release online warning that Wyoming’s laws around marijuana would be strongly enforced during the eclipse. Meanwhile smoke shops in Oregon, where the drug is legal, are gearing up for a spike in marijuana sales, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Some people are planning activities a bit more eccentric than smoking while viewing the eclipse. Last week, an ad on Craigslist appeared in the “Activity Partners” section of the site posted by a self-identifying 40-year-old man. He was seeking a woman to conceive with during the eclipse but the ad has since been removed from the site.

All of these acts are far more out of the ordinary than a dog barking or hiding, crickets chirping or bees rushing to their hives. When it comes to animal behavior during the eclipse, humans are actually most likely to to go the extra mile, sometimes literally, and act different than usual.