Osprey causes power outage with eyrie
An osprey caused a power cut by building its nest on a power pole. The power is back on, but the eagle is homeless.
These ospreys have a beautiful nest.
(Image: Shutterstock.com/Denise Dethlefsen / Bearbeitung: heise online)
The repeated attempt by an osprey to build a nest on an electricity pylon near Dobin am See in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was ill-fated. Unfortunately, its construction project led to a short circuit, leaving residents in the dark. Even the police had to arrive – not to arrest the eagle, but to record the proper demolition of the nest. In the past, there had already been strong criticism from a nature conservation association because of a nest removal, as the osprey is an endangered species.
The persistent bird seems to have declared the electricity pylon its personal penthouse, as it has been trying to build an eyrie in the same place for several years, according to a press release. Although the residents have power again after countless hours, his eyrie is gone. He is certainly not happy with the swap deal. However, nothing happened to the osprey, a police spokesperson told heise online. He was not present during the theft, observed by the police. We can only hope that someone will offer it a nice new nest – far away from the dangerous power lines.
A few weeks ago, a pair of storks in Aschendorf, Lower Saxony, also chose a life-threatening nesting site – a power pole on the railroad line. According to the NOZ newspaper, this was the fate of a fellow stork just a short time before.
And joking aside: according to the Nature Conservation Association Germany (Naturschutzbund Deutschland, NABU) up to 2.8 million birds die every year throughout Germany. To improve bird protection measures in cooperation with electricity grid operators, NABU collects data on bird collisions and visualizes them on a map.
Critical Infrastructure for whom?
There are regular reports of animals causing critical infrastructure failures (Kritische Infrastrukturen, KRITIS). For example, a beaver made headlines around the world when it was blamed for a power outage in parts of a Canadian province. A former deputy director of the NSA (National Security Agency) even sees squirrels as "the biggest threat the US power grid has ever faced" and considers them more dangerous than cyberattacks on power grids. This claim is backed up by a 2021 "cybersquirrel" map, which shows that more than 1,000 cyber squirrel operations have occurred. Unfortunately, no squirrel has yet commented on this bold claim to the editorial team.
(mack)
