Beijing launched on Monday a new earthquake monitoring station at a wildlife park in the southwestern suburbs, using birds and animals as sensors rather than machines.

The station will use more than 50 horses, donkeys, peacocks, snakes, turtles, frogs, deer and other animals at the Beijing Wildlife Park in the outer Daxing District, where more than 10,000 birds and animals roam 240 hectares of land, said Liu Xinchen, deputy general manager of the park.

"Seven observation points will be set up in the park, each headed by a senior zoo keeper who will record the animals' daily behavior for the seismological bureau," Liu said.

Seismological experts say abnormal behavior can be observed in many wild animals before an impending earthquake: hibernating animals wake up and flee from their caves, and aquatic animals leap from the water.

An earthquake measuring 5.1 degrees on the Richter scale jolted Wen'an county in Hebei Province last July and was clearly felt in Beijing and Tianjin.

Before and during the quake, zoo workers at the Beijing Wildlife Park observed that parrots were abnormally fidgety with no apparent signs of disease or interference, said Liu.

"The park is located along a fracture in the earth's crust and is therefore an ideal place to monitor and detect earthquakes," said Deng Baoyin, director of the Daxing District Seismological Bureau.

Guangzhou Zoo in south China's Guangdong Province has also begun to use animals as quake sensors, according to the Guangzhou government seismological office.

In one of the worst disasters in modern Chinese history, an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale hit Tangshan city, 200 kilometers east of Beijing, on July 29, 1976. The quake left 240,000 people dead, 160,000 severely injured and more than 4,000 children orphaned.