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Squirrels Are the Number One Culprit for Animal Damage to Aerial Fiber
- inflatableDodo 7y agoNow waiting for the news item, 'Little old homeless lady disconnects internet with squirrel army.'
- alex_anglin 7y agoIt's already begun: https://cybersquirrel1.com/ https://cybersquirrel1.com/ Although the squirrels seem to be taking it upon themselves...
- inflatableDodo 7y agoThat is genius, but I note it doesn't disprove my 'little old lady who lives in park' theory, it may just be mapping the extents of it.
- calcifer 7y agoPoliticians and greedy monopolistic companies are the number one culprit for aerial fiber in the first place, so...
- village-idiot 7y ago... Do you not want Internet? It seems like you don't want the internet.
- ncmncm 7y agoOther greedy companies are planning to loft thousands of satellites to compete with the aerial fibers and, better, co-ax cable. More power to them, astronomy notwithstanding.
- Y-bar 7y agocybersquirrel1.com strikes again!
- RappingBoomer 7y agoand also to car wiring
- jimhefferon 7y agoAlso for ham radio antennas. I hate them.
- et2o 7y agoNetworking programming errors should be called squirrels instead of bugs.
- deepsun 7y agoCould you make cable that is very untasty for squirrels, but environment-friendly otherwise?
- knodi123 7y agolicorice data lines?
- dreamcompiler 7y agoProbably. Part of the problem is that many modern electrical insulation materials--in an effort to be eco-friendly--are made of soy derivatives. When such materials are used for wires in car engines, as they frequently are in Japanese cars, rats consider them dinner. I live in a rural area, and I've spent many $K on this problem. Whether there's an equally "natural" material that rodents don't like is a question that should be researched.
- ncmncm 7y agoThey could put capsaicin in the insulation, if they cared. That wouldn't help against Australian parrots but rodents are the clearly bigger problem, most places.
- dreamcompiler 7y agoProbably that would require assembly workers to wear gloves. But perhaps they already do.
- yareally 7y agoParrots are immune to the pain effects of capsaicin because it doesn't attach to their receptors and many actually love eating hot peppers. https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_did_birds_adapt_to_eat_hot_peppers2 https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_did_birds_adapt_to_eat... https://www.maddog357.com/parrots-peppers-no-sweat/ https://www.maddog357.com/parrots-peppers-no-sweat/ https://www.parrots.org/ask-an-expert/are-hot-peppers-good-for-your-parrot https://www.parrots.org/ask-an-expert/are-hot-peppers-good-f...
- thrownaway954 7y agoall wires should be buried. not only squirrels and other critters, but hurricanes and other acts of nature cause major problems. i know that most cities have started doing this for aesthetics than anything.
- legulere 7y agoHigh voltage cables still make more sense overground, because of higher costs and because they hardly fail.
- dreamcompiler 7y agoBut when they do, it's usually because of storms, trees, and...squirrels.
- bitbckt 7y agoUntil they do and burn down towns in Northern California...
- chrisseaton 7y agoBut they can ruin the beauty of our natural landscapes. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/15/national-grid-remove-electricity-pylons-protected-landscapes-improve-view https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/15/national-gri...
- legulere 7y agoYou need to keep the soil on top of underground cables free from trees and deep-rooting bushes, so it’s not necessarily better looking.
- TimTheTinker 7y agoI know distribution lines are routinely buried, but can transmission lines be buried?
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- village-idiot 7y agoSquirrels are considered a strategic threat to the US infrastructure according to some governmental agencies. They're amazingly effective at knocking out power lines, albeit to the detriment of the squirrel who undertakes these apparent suicide missions.
- arafa 7y agoUsed to happen at our house all the time (once every 6-12 months), we had lots of trees near power lines. There'd be a bang, a blue flash of light, a dead squirrel, and no power (or a power dip).
- siffland 7y agoWe had the entire power to our building knocked out by a squirrel, one of the admins got a picture of it fried on the ground after it fell. Took the power company about 4 hours get power back to the building, one would think it would be a little more difficult to knock out power. totally off topic, but we have a pear tree in the back yard by a fence and the squirrels will take bites out of the pears before they are ripe and knock them on the ground. In over a decade we have not gotten a single pear off the tree. My wife hates them and will yell at them, she has delcared war on them (but she is losing). So they are efficient at being pests.
- darkpuma 7y agoIf you're open to culling their population, a large bucket filled with water, with bird seed floating on top, is very good at drowning squirrels.
- newnewpdro 7y agoAs a kid I was enlisted by my parents to kill squirrels living off our fruit trees, with a >1000 foot-per-second air rifle. The sibling comment about a large water bucket and seeds sounds like a good idea, wish we had thought of it back then. The shooting of squirels was always a source of friction with the neighbors, greased yearly with free sacks of the tastiest peaches and pears ever.
- gavman 7y ago99% Invisible did a great episode on squirrels, covering their history in major American cities (they were introduced, not native) and the havoc the wreak on our infrastructure https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/uptown-squirrel/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/uptown-squirrel/
- tzs 7y agoThe Eastern Gray squirrel is native in eastern and midwestern North America, but it lives in forests, and we cut those down to make room for cities. So bringing some in to live in the parks and other trees of those cities seems more like re-introducing a native species than introducing a non-native species. They were later also brought in to cities in other parts of North America, and there it was introducing a non-native species. Worse, in many of those areas there were species of native squirrels living outside the cities. After the Eastern Gray's were brought to the cities, they often spread to the forests outside the cities, and took over the habitat of the native squirrels. Here in the state of Washington, there is only one small area known to still have a native Western Gray squirrel population. The Eastern Grays, introduced a little under 100 years ago, have taken their place everywhere else. I have no idea why whoever wanted squirrels in Seattle decided to bring Eastern Grays from across the country, instead of simply going and trapping a few of the then abundant native Western Grays outside the city, and using those.
- lbutler 7y agoWhile we don't have squirrels in Australia, we're not immune to this problem either! Cockatoos, a native parrot, love chewing up our fibre lines. https://www.nbnco.com.au/blog/the-nbn-project/a-uniquely-australian-problem-cockatoos-vs-infrastructure https://www.nbnco.com.au/blog/the-nbn-project/a-uniquely-aus...
- AWildC182 7y agoI have a cockatiel (small cousin to the cockatoo) at home. The first thing I thought when I saw "Australia" was "oh god, cockatoos." Mine regularly severs USB and headphone cables with ease then spends hours stripping all the insulation off preventing any hope of repair. I can only imagine what the Australian flying bolt cutters could do. Edit: to anyone contemplating a parrot who owns a laptop, you will come back into the room to find it completely stripped of all its keys. Parrots just really love forcibly disassembling things.
- dreamcompiler 7y agoSomeday our era may be known to history as "just before the Caddyshack Apocalypse."
- hbarka 7y agoAerial things are the number one culprit for man-made damage to squirrels.
- PhasmaFelis 7y agoWhy is it not practical to impregnate the cable sheaths with something foul-tasting?
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- LifeofPi314 7y agoMy dog tries to tell me this everyday.
- seiferteric 7y agoThey're adorable, I forgive them.
- tzs 7y ago> anybody that has ever put out a bird feeder knows how persistent squirrels can be Bribery is effective. Put out a separate feeder with something squirrels like [1], make it easier to reach than your bird feeders, and keep it stocked. The squirrels will feed there and leave the other feeders alone. [1] https://www.perkypet.com/articles/what-to-feed-squirrels https://www.perkypet.com/articles/what-to-feed-squirrels
- yareally 7y agoI haven't had to try it yet (no squirrels raiding my feeder in the area), but supposedly spraying hot pepper juice on bird seed should keep the squirrels away while still letting the birds eat the seed. Birds are immune to the effects of capsicum because it doesn't attach to their pain receptors. https://www.maddog357.com/chili-pepper-birdseed-yes-thing/ https://www.maddog357.com/chili-pepper-birdseed-yes-thing/
- patio11 7y agoHN exposed me to http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/opinion/sunday/squirrel-power.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/opinion/sunday/squirrel-po... , which has the best paragraph about squirrels ever: Matthew Olearczyk, a program manager with the Electric Power Research Institute, explains that typically a squirrel will cause a blackout by scampering across electrical equipment and touching simultaneously both an energized component, like one of the cylindrical transformers at the top of a utility pole, and a grounded piece of equipment. The squirrel completes the circuit, generating an arc. There is an instantaneous flash of blue light. At its center is the squirrel, combusting.
- cco 7y agoI'm confused as to why this hasn't been incorporated into designs for electrical utilities, squirrel length is pretty easy to figure out and then just never design components that could be shorted via that reach.