Salmon-arm British Columbia is located above washington state about midway between Vancouvery and Calgary. It is far enough north that it should know be well able to tell the difference between the national animal and an invasive rodent. But I guess not.
Beavers and balloons blamed for power outages in 2017
BC Hydro compiles a list of most memorable outages of last year
From beavers to balloons, to ships — BC Hydro is recounting the most memorable causes of power outages in 2017. Crews responded to more than 17,800 outages last years with wildfires in the Central and Southern Interior topping the list.
- A squirrel chewed through a piece of electrical equipment causing it to catch fire and 180 customers in Burnaby – including a local cheese factory – to lose power.
- Loose birthday party balloons contacted power lines and caused an outage to 800 in downtown Vancouver on a Friday evening.
- A beaver gnawed a tree that fell on a power line, causing the community of Hixon in Northern B.C. to lose power.
If you don’t know what the animal LOOKS like, how can you possibly know it was responsible for the crime?
Speaking of what beavers look like, there are some nice wintry beaver photos this morning. This one was uploaded to the Canadian Geographic Photo Club by Brittany Crossman from Riverside Canada and shows a pair of beavers in an icy pond.
The second is from our friends Phil Price and Julie Lamont who are vacationing in wintry yellowstone because they are hardy folks and that’s the kind of thing they do. They were excited to find this on an exploration yesterday,
First beaver sighting ever in Yellowstone – and in winter, no less. Clipped willow branches and drag marks on the snow and ice led us to this beaver’s lodge – and as we scanned the area at evening, in hopes of a glimpse, there he was, at the edge of the water. Nature’s best engineers; the Army Corps could learn a lesson or two…
I asked if Phil if he thought this was a hole they made and maintained and he answered
“This section of river has several open leads that I think are naturally open in the unseasonably warm weather here right now (around 30 daytime, 10 at night… Both are about 20 degrees warmer than normal). Maybe the beaver would have to work to keep them open in normal weather, but not right now.”
As a special historic treat, here’s his lovely and well-spoken wife Julia at our very first beaver festival in a video letter to the mayor.
