Animals are smarter than people acknowledge. They have fundamentally disparate senses and abilities than humans, so they understand the world differently than we do.
Can Animals Predict Earthquakes? (LiveScience.com)
Animals & Earthquake Prediction (U.S. Geological Survey)
There have also been examples where authorities have forecast successfully a major earthquake, based in part on the observation of the strange antics of animals. For example, in 1975 Chinese officials ordered the evacuation of Haicheng, a city with one million people, just days before a 7.3-magnitude quake. Only a small portion of the population was hurt or killed. If the city had not been evacuated, it is estimated that the number of fatalities and injuries could have exceeded 150,000.
Quotation from National Geographic News