Swedish beaver knocks out power for thousands
A spokesman for Sweden’s state-owned energy provider has revealed the identity of the vandal behind a blackout which saw 15,000 Swedish homes left without power.
The households were without power for around an hour and 15 minutes on Monday evening after a beaver chewed through a tree which fell and took down an electricity wire in the Södertälje area – about 30 kilometres south-west of Stockholm.
“The little rascal. It is really something that should not be able to happen,” Peter Stedt, a spokesperson for Swedish energy giant Vattenfall, told The Local when the source of the problem was revealed on Wednesday.
“Yes, but he felled in the wrong direction, so we’re going to have to have a word with him,” joked Stedt.
Ahh the Swedes. Even their episode of ‘blame the beaver’ is smarter than ours. Very droll, Stedt. Good to know their media isn’t much smarter. It runs through the usual litany of beaver assaults on civilization, and mentions nothing about their importance to wetlands or wildlife. But still, fairly cute article on a gnarly gnawly topic!
Here’s some actual footage of an actual beaver chewing an actual tree in America, taken by our good friend Rusty Cohn in Napatopia recently. The beaver was determined and the photographer was patient.
Apparently I was on KGO this morning, just got the word from a friend. They called yesterday about the unexplained deaths and we did a phone interview. (A kind of strange phone interview when they asked questions and continued talking even while I was answering them?) But hopefully it wasn’t too confusing. Jon just did the morning sweep and no dead beavers today. A happy looking live beaver chewing on his supper at ward street with a green heron standing guard. Something like this.
