12 ms·
> hunter's stray bullets often severed the cables Wait, what? If stray bullets are randomly severing cables - and doing so "often" - they should often be rand
by coolgeek 6y ago
> hunter's stray bullets often severed the cables
Wait, what? If stray bullets are randomly severing cables - and doing so "often" - they should often be randomly hitting other things, in a frequency corresponding to the size and distribution of the thing(s) being hit.
Pardonnez moi for not reading the article. Je ne parle pas Francaise. But this doesn't seem like it could possibly be the reason for why this method is no longer used on new deployments.
- MayeulC 6y agoNo worries, you still get points for your effort :) (s/Francaise/français/) This also surprised me, hence the "hard to anticipate" bit in the linked post. I guess it stems from multiple factors: high voltage lines being very long, high above ground, and crossing remote areas that might be hunting grounds. Plus, some prey might actually rest on the wires or pylons. I should have written "lead shot" instead of "bullets", as that's a better translation. Such ammunition is commonly used for shooting birds, that can be located in front of or behind the lines. Fiber twisted around the cable also increases its cross-section. It's actually quite likely that they often hit other things, but not human ones (stats say ~140 hunt accidents per year on average there, ~15 deadly, ~20 non-hunters). The cross section of high voltage lines present during hunts on hunting grounds is likely bigger than the human one. Plus, hunters tend not to fire at people or in their general direction, while they don't care about HV lines.
- coolgeek 6y agoAh, okay, that makes sense now. We call it bird shot here. Birds are also known to perch upon wires, which is another factor that I hadn't considered before. (Actually, I wasn't even thinking about birds at all... I was only considering mammals.)