According to the CTV News website, the first hints of serious problems with the Internet backbone in the town of Tumblr Ridge began to surface at about four o’clock on Saturday morning, April 24. After a while, a whole team of technicians was sent to investigate – communication was lost in all nine hundred houses and buildings of the municipality. After examining the fiber-optic cable going to the city, it turned out that he had become a victim of wild animals.
With the arrival of the first heat, gigantic rodents began to equip the territory under their control. Among other things, the beavers decided to build a new burrow in the river bank. And, since the dedication of these animals can only be envied by a freight train running at full steam, the Internet cable was not saved even by the fact that it was more than a dozen meters from the water’s edge. Diligently making the passage of a new dwelling, the beavers stumbled upon something that looked like a root and dealt with it in the most logical way.
Not far from the place where the main cables were gnawed, the technicians found a fresh dam. In the photo you can see the hole that the beavers dug – it is visible at the far end of the pit / © Telus
Technicians from the local Telus division dug up the cut and found that there was almost nothing left of the cables. The beavers were not stopped even by the strong, solid insulation 4.5 inches thick (almost 12 centimeters). They gnawed at it in several places, and completely cut one of the trunk cables. Obviously, if the protective shell could not resist the teeth of the animals, the thin fiber inside did not have a chance at all.
Residents of Tumblr Ridge lost their cable TV, internet and cellular communications over the weekend. The problem was partially compensated by the neighboring mobile towers, but their capacity was not enough for a city with a population of almost two thousand people.
It took more than a day to re-lay the cable and restore it – they had to work in difficult conditions of the wild. The fact is that spring has just begun to come to British Columbia, and the ground is still frozen. And below the depth of freezing, where the beavers were digging, water from the river entered the trench. The provision of communication services was resumed only after lunch on Sunday.
© CTV News
Beavers bother Canadians regularly. Sometimes these are small flooding of areas, and sometimes it is a real threat to life. Last fall, right in the suburbs of Vancouver, Surrey, a pest rodent knocked down several trees on the front garden of a town house. Moreover, one trunk fell on the house, broke through the roof and knocked out the glass. Then, fortunately, no one was hurt, but local residents raised the issue of capturing the animal and transporting it to a deserted area.
