Keeping the lights on often requires keeping critters out. That’s because animals are behind thousands of outages every year.
Most of the time these accidents are easily corrected by utility crews and electricians, but the sheer volume of animal incursions as well as the variety of ways they can cause blackouts sometimes leaves even seasoned professionals scratching their heads.
Animals that regularly cause trouble include raccoons, snakes, rats, squirrels and birds of all kinds. But there are weirder, rarer examples of animal-triggered outages too. Let’s take a look at some of the ways animals get themselves — and us — into trouble when they mess with the power grid.