Living in a place like rural PA, visible power-lines are a pretty common thing. You know, the tall wooden polls along roads and houses, strung together by thick black wires that carry electricity. For us, these wires are essential to our everyday lives because they power the things that we can’t live without– televisions, coffee makers, microwaves, and phone chargers. But, these power-lines aren’t only important due to their source of power, but also as a source of leisure. No, not a source of leisure for humans, but rather, for small mammals! Animals such birds, rats, and SQUIRRELS love power-lines as perching spots and a means of getting around town in the quickest and most efficient way possible. But, as you could imagine, these power-line excursions aren’t necessarily the… safest. Animal electrocution on power-lines is -unfortunately a commonly-occurring activity, which is not only detrimental to the animals themselves, but also creates quite a problem for the electric companies. In fact, it has been creating such problems that a New York Times journalist decided to do his own personal research on the topic. John Mooallem published an article in August of 2013 relaying his study’s results, which are, quite frankly, pretty shocking. John first became intrigued by the topic when in April of 2013, a single squirrel (who unfortunately did not make it…RIP) created power loss for over 700 Florida residents, forcing the delay of three Florida state-wide achievement tests in 3 nearby schools. John’s studies go on to document an additional 50 power outages among 24 states caused by squirrels between Labor Day of 2013 (May 27th) and the time that the article was published in August. The most extensive of these power outages occurred in Portland, Oregon, where in the month of July alone, over 9,000 people collectively lost power due to squirrels.

Now, I know this a touchy topic to discuss, it being death and all… especially because it involves the cutest and fluffiest animals on this planet, but I feel as if I need to get into the specifics a bit.

So, power-lines are designed to take on this kind of interruption. Once the… electrocuted animal falls to the ground from the power-line, the flow of electricity continues. But, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes… you know… the squirrels… get stuck. Yes, they get stuck in the power-lines sometimes, and this is what creates the massive interruptions in the flow of energy. The electricity essentially… ugh this is so hard to say… disintegrates the squirrels completely when they get stuck, which as you could imagine, creates a bunch of problems.

Overall, it is estimated that between 7 and 20 percent of power outages are caused by squirrels, and just for an idea of cost, it is estimated that California’s economy spent over 300 million dollars just on squirrel related power outages.

I know that this was a gruesome topic, but guys, this is the dark side of squirrels so it had to be said.