Researcher Sabine Begall and her colleagues at Germany’s University of Duisburg-Essen examined Google Earth images of 8,510 cattle in 308 pastures around the world, and made direct observations of 2,974 wild deer at 225 locations in the Czech Republic.  

They found that whether grazing or resting, the animals tended to face magnetic north or south.  

“In Africa and South America, the cattle shifted slightly to a more northeastern-southwestern direction,” wrote Begall.

“But it is known that the Earth’s magnetic field is much weaker there,” she explained.

This phenomenon or animal magnetic orientation has apparently gone unnoticed by herdsmen and hunters for the thousands of years before Google Earth allowed such a global survey.

Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Begall notes that because the direction of wind and sunlight varied widely at the observed pastures, the only common factor that could have influenced the animals’ positioning was the magnetic field.

Many species, such as birds and some fish, are known to use Earth’s magnetic field for migration. This is the first study to examine if larger animals are also influenced by the same force.

Photo: Dale Kimberling