BEWARE SQUIRRELS!
Bad-ass rodents wreak havoc across the world
Rodents on a rampage
On 7 December 2016, a squirrel climbed on an overhead line and fried, causing almost 1,100 customers in the Huntingdon area of Cambridgeshire to lose their electricity supply for nearly two hours. BBC News, 8 Dec 2016.
The pesky rodents have an impressive record for sabotage. In May 1980, they gnawed through circuit wires, setting off air-raid sirens in Toronto [ FT34:26]. On 1 August 1994, a squirrel shut down the second largest stock market in the US for 34 minutes when it chewed through power lines near the Nasdaq computer centre at Trumbull, Connecticut [ FT78:20]. In October 1994, a squirrel cut the power to Derby City Hospital and more than 1,100 houses when it climbed a power line and touched an 11,000-volt cable [ FT84:14]. Squirrel saboteurs were very busy in 1996, blacking out the village of Hollingwood in Derbyshire in June, 1,290 houses in Stroud, Gloucestershire, in July, and 800 houses in West Lothian, Scotland, in September. All three rodents laid down their lives [ FT96:14].
The real threat to global critical infrastructure is not enemy states or organisations but squirrels, according to one security expert. Cris Thomas has been tracking power cuts caused by animals since 2013. Squirrels, birds, rats and snakes have been responsible for more than 1,700 power cuts affecting nearly five million people. Squirrels topped the list with 879 ‘attacks’, followed by: birds (434), snakes (83), raccoons (72), rats (36), martens (22), frogs (3). He concluded that the damage done by real cyber-attacks – Stuxnet's destruction of Iranian uranium enrichment centrifuges and disruption to Ukrainian power plants being the most high profile – was tiny compared to the “cyber-threat” posed by animals. Most of the animal “attacks” were on power cables, but jellyfish shut down a Swedish nuclear power plant in 2013 by clogging the pipes that carry cool water to the turbines. Eight deaths have been attributed to animal attacks on infrastructure, including six caused by squirrels downing power lines that then struck people on the ground. Thomas only collected reports compiled in English and admitted that he was probably only capturing “a fraction” of animal-related power cuts worldwide. BBC News, 17 Jan 2017.
Delinquent grey fox squirrels attacked eight people in northwest Novato, Marin County, California, in late 2015. One leapt from a tree and onto a man’s head as he did yard work on 13 November; five days later, one entered an Elementary School and attacked a student. On the day after Thanksgiving, Richard Williams, 78, was pottering around his garage when a squirrel scampered towards him. “He charged me and jumped, and from then on, the battle started,” he said. The squirrel turned Williams’s head, arm and legs bloody and smashed his glasses. “He was really vicious. He was clawing and scratching,” he said. “Every time I’d get him off, he’d jump back up again.” His 83-year-old wife Norma heard his screams and raced to his aid, swinging a broom. Still the attack continued. “And then he jumped her,” Williams said. “I was able to grab him by the tail, threw him on the garage floor and he seemed stunned.” The squirrel then raced off and a neighbour took the shocked couple to hospital. All the attacks were in the same neighbourhood, suggesting the same crazed animal was to blame. Marin (CA) Independent Journal, 2 Dec; CBS SF Bay Area, 4 Dec 2015.
Six others emerged from a hedge and attacked him
A politician who declared war on squirrels was hospitalised on 13 November 2016 after one of the creatures darted between the spokes of his bike's front wheel. City of Chicago alderman Howard Brookins Jr lost several teeth and
needed surgery for a broken nose and fractured skull after he went flying over the handlebars when the squirrel struck. He wanted to get the dead animal stuffed as a reminder of his ordeal, but police had thrown it away. The crash, which killed the animal outright and left it lodged in the wheel, happened a few weeks after he had called on the city to tackle the “aggressive” creatures. He told the Chicago Tribune: “I can think of no other reason for this squirrel’s actions than that it was like a suicide bomber, getting revenge.” On 21 October he had addressed a city council meeting alerting the authorities to the amount of money wasted by squirrels chewing their way through people’s rubbish bins. Washington Post, 22 Nov; Eve Standard, 24 Nov 2016.
A pack of fat squirrels is terrorising visitors to Tehidy County Park in Cornwall. Sophie Renouf, 23, and her three-yearold son Finley were set upon as the little boy reached out to feed one, and six others emerged from a hedge and attacked him. “He was screaming,” said Ms Renouf. “There was blood pouring out of his hand.” A friend told her the brazen rodents had also tried to bite her little girl. Finley spent three hours in hospital having his wounds bandaged. D.Mirror, 12 Jan; Sun, 14 Jan 2017.
Three squirrel breeders died from encephalitis between 2011 and 2013, after a virus was passed to them by the rodents. During an inquest, a new strain of the virus was found in the men’s brain samples and in the variegated squirrel. This suggested it had spread from the rodents, which bit or scratched at least two of the three men in Germany. Variegated squirrels are an exotic breed from South America sometimes kept as house pets. Sun, 11 July 2015.
In a paper published in Science last November, researchers announced that they had identified two strains of leprosycausing bacteria – Mycobacterium lepræ and Mycobacterium lepromatosis – in populations of red squirrels around the UK. It is only the third animal, after humans and armadillos, known to be susceptible to the disease. While not life-threatening, leprosy can lead to skin lesions, nerve damage in the extremities, and blindness. Mycobacterium lepræ, found in a group of red squirrels living on Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour, Dorset, is closely related to the leprosy that affected Europeans during mediæval times. Many cases of leprosy in the southern United States are zoonotic (transmitted by an animal, in this case an armadillo) in origin. However, leprosy is extremely hard to catch, close to 95 per cent of humans are naturally immune, and the disease is completely treatable with antibiotics. The last British case was in 1798, but there were 200,000 new cases worldwide in 2015. popsci.com, 10 Nov; D.Mail, D.Telegraph, 11 Nov 2016.
Black squirrels – now allegedly poised to oust grey squirrels just as the latter have displaced reds – have been observed in the UK at least since 1993 [ FT77:55]. In January 1997, Archway in London was being terrorised by a mutant strain of squirrel, thought to be grey squirrel-rat hybrids and nicknamed ‘rattels’ or ‘squirrats’ [ FT97:8].
For more on squirrel delinquency, see FT335:9.