Magnetic attraction of cows

Deer may have it too

By FRITZ MAYER

BETHEL, NY — According to Harold Russell, cows are creatures of habit. But do they have a habit of situating their bodies in alignment with Earth’s north-south magnetic fields?

According to a study conducted by German scientists, the answer is yes. A paper on the study published in the periodical “Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences” on August 26, reported that cows tend to line up with the magnetic fields when they are grazing and resting.

When Russell, who owns quite a few cows, heard that bit of information, he laughed and said, “I’ve never noticed that. Maybe our cows are different.”

That was about the same reaction elicited from other farmers around the country and printed in various news outlets.

But the scientists are entirely serious, and they believe the phenomenon is global.

Sabine Begall and several colleagues of the University of Duisburg-Essen used the Internet to come to this conclusion. They studied pictures taken from space and posted to Google Maps. The pictures covered over 8,000 cows in more than 300 herds and revealed that more than 66 percent were oriented along the magnetic fields.

And the apparent magnetic attraction was not limited to cows. It seems that deer also have this characteristic. In studying the deer, the authors used field observation and measured deer beds in the snow, along with Google Maps images, to help confirm their hypothesis.

It has been known for years that some birds and fish respond to the planet’s magnetic poles because of the particular make-up of their brains. But this is the first evidence that suggests that larger animals might also be responsive to the minute global magnetic tug.

It’s not clear what benefit this might provide to the animals now or might have provided in the past. Some have speculated that perhaps cows used this ability in migration before settling down with humans on dairy farms.

In the Academy of Sciences article, Begall expressed surprise that no one had discovered this until now. She wrote, “Amazingly, this ubiquitous phenomenon does not seem to have been noticed by herdsmen, ranchers or hunters.”

So what good can come from this discovery? Perhaps, not too much. A story about the topic in the Los Angeles Times read, “Experts acknowledged that the research almost certainly has no practical applications.”

That’s something Russell and other farmers probably agree with.