Enlarge image
Beaver (symbol image)
Photo: VASILY FEDOSENKO / REUTERS
The Canadians have a somewhat ambivalent relationship with their national animal.
The beaver adorns the five-cent coin, many people in the country love the cute rodents and talented dam builders.
Many farmers, however, point to damage to crops and trees, and animal structures in rivers are often associated with floods.
The village of Tumbler Ridge, however, now had to struggle with a completely different beaver-related problem: the animals have nibbled off the internet from the place.
"This is a very unusual process and only happens in Canada," said a spokeswoman for the Internet provider Telus, according to the British BBC.
Technicians had previously investigated the massive disruption to the Internet and TV supply in the place.
From 4 a.m. on this Saturday, nothing worked in most households.
In their search for the source of the error, the Telus technicians came across various beaver caves in which they discovered parts of the damaged cable.
The important line was laid at a depth of around three meters.
An approximately 12 centimeter thick insulation was supposed to protect the cable from external influences - this insulation was obviously not a problem for the beavers' canines.
"The cable was gnawed in several places, the damage was considerable," Telus continues.
Only on Sunday afternoon was the Internet supply for the approximately 2000 residents - not all of whom were affected - restored.
Today the beavers - yesterday the sharks
It happens again and again that curious animals tamper with fiber optic cables.
The technology group Google made the headlines.
In 2014, the company announced that it was providing deep-sea cables with a protective jacket similar to Kevlar to protect them from shark bites.
How often such incidents actually occur is unclear.
However, experts assume that electromagnetic fields around the cables could mislead the predatory fish's sensitive sensory organs.
jok
