Squirrels Drive Utilities Nuts

Yes, I know... bad pun, but that was the headline in the USA Today story that ran in my local paper yesterday. In summary, squirrels can be a major nuisance for power companies, and hence for just about all of us, as they can cause major outages. They do this, it seems, by getting themselves electrocuted, so that is not very funny: I grew up in a woods in the country in Western NY, so I had squirrels around me all the time and enjoyed feeding and watching them year-round.

But I nonetheless found the article itself to be quite funny. Consider these quotes:

• "What caused more outages? The lightning or the squirrels?"
• "Many states are grappling with a big increase in the number of power outages caused by squirrel electrocutions."
• "In Georgia, squirrel-related outages more than tripled from 5,273 in 2005 to 16,750 in 2006."
• "Stopping the squirrels is costing utilities millions more dollars."
• "It appears that the problem may in part be due to acorns."
• "...says Peter Smallwood, a squirrel expert and biology professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia." [Italics mine]
• "Smallwood, who has studied squirrels for more than 20 years, said their affinity for power lines and fighting through manmade barriers is in their nature."
• "Hundreds of gallons of raw sewage poured into Mobile Bay in Alabama after a squirrel cut power to a sewage lift station there."
• "Stopping the squirrels is not easy."
• "PECO, which powers Philadelphia and its surrounding counties, spends $1 million a year on squirrel guards to stop outages from "those rascally little varmints," Engel said. The utilities say they're seeing some success. PECO has seen its squirrel-related outages tumble from 11,605 in 2003 to 1,345 in 2006."
• "But squirrels adapt to the technology, forcing the utilities to switch to different forms of what's known in the business as "wildlife abatement technology." "Whenever we think we've got them figured out, they try something else," Engelman said."

Maybe its just me, but I find something quite funny in the phrase "squirrel-related". I admit the issues here are serious, for both man and squirrel, but this article still gave me many laughs. Maybe its the name "squirrel" itself -- that is an odd name when you think about it.

That last quote above made me think of the Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation, who had shielding against phaser pistols fire, and after a period of adaptation, against even those that had modulating frequencies.

And the article as a whole made me think of Al-Qaeda. I mean, we've all heard how terrorists are likely to target our utilities (nuclear plants, electric grid, etc.). Maybe they already are. Maybe they are in cahoots with the squirrels. Maybe they promised them a huge pile of acorns in the afterlife to be suicide runners into the transformer fields! I am hereby starting a conspiracy theory along these lines!