An anonymous person living on the East Coast has created and maintains a map indicting where squirrels have caused power outages. The little rodents like to climb up power poles and either gnaw at the power lines or tangle them up. Cyber Squirrel’s map includes 623 instances of squirrels causing outages since 1987, and that’s just squirrels. Cyber Squirrels also tracks disruptions caused by birds (214), racoons (52), snakes (47), rats (25), and beavers (9).
Squirrels are causing the biggest threats to those electricity-loving people living in Montana. In 2015, squirrels caused the most outages in Big Sky Country. “I don’t think paralysis [of the electrical grid] is more likely by cyberattack than by natural disaster,” said John C. Inglis, Former Deputy Director, National Security Agency on July 9, 2015. “And frankly the number-one threat experienced to date by the US electrical grid is squirrels.”
