6 animals that attacked critical human infrastructure

keep out electricity danger warning sign
If only animals could read these warning signs.
Ryan/Flickr

No matter how carefully we design and build infrastructure, there are some things we can't control.

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Like animals. Sneaky, mischievous animals who ignore signs like "No Trespassing."

And it turns out animals have made quite a few forays against human infrastructure.

Take a look at these troublemakers and the damage they did.

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The monkey that caused a blackout

vervet monkey
In this photo taken Monday, Feb. 15, 2016 a vervet monkey climbs in a tree at the Treetop Lodge in the Hluhluwe–Imfolozi Park in the KwaZula province, South Africa.
Denis Farrell/AP

Last week, Kenya's largest power producer confessed on Facebook that it had suffered a major attack by monkey, likely a vervet monkey.

The monkey infiltrated a power plant, slipped off a building roof, and fell onto a transformer. That made the transformer fail, which caused a chain of other transformers to fail.

Most of Kenya was blacked out for the next four hours. The monkey was apparently unharmed.

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The weasel-like creature that halted the world's largest machine

beech marten lhc takedown
Jerzystrzelecki/Wikimedia Commons

Until April, most people have never heard of a beech marten, a small rodent related to a weasel.

The critter catapulted to fame when it managed to put the Large Hadron Collider out of commission for a few days by shorting out the particle collider's power supply. 

The marten did not survive its mission.

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The sharks that chewed up our communication infrastructure

shark
A shark swims around during a feeding demonstration at the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town, South Africa, Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2006. A unique shark spotting program to protect surfers and swimmers against sharks is to be expanded, government officials and environmentalists said Thursday. Sept. 14, 2006. Experts agreed that people posed a far greater risk to sharks than the other way around.
Denis Farrell/AP

For a couple of decades, global communications networks were at the mercy of sharks. Beginning with the introduction of transoceanic fiberoptic cables in the mid-1980s, companies noticed something fishy was happening: They were fixing the cables way more often than they wanted to.

In 2014, Google released incredible footage showing a shark biting into one of its cables. Some scientists think the sharks may have been attracted by the electromagnetic fields created by the cables.

But sharks could be getting a worse rap than they deserve: The Internet Cable Protection Committee last year announced that sharks were being blamed for service outages caused by the anchors of large ships, the movement of the Earth's crust, and other factors.

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The raccoons that invaded a particle accelerator

raccoon mob
A zookeeper feeds raccoons at Egypt's Giza Zoo in Cairo January 27, 2014.
Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters

"No raccoons were either injured or captured during these encounters. Operator losses were low."

It doesn't read like your typical release from a federal lab, but that's what Fermilab, located outside of Chicago, reported in May 2006.

The raccoons invaded Tevatron, a particle accelerator like the Large Hadron Collider. Tevatron was down for a few days after the attack.

It's since been taken out of service (not on account of the raccoons).

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The squirrels that pose the biggest threat to the US electrical grid

squirrel
A squirrel dines on a peanut after a spring storm packing high winds and heavy snow left up to a foot of snow in its wake in Denver on Tuesday, April 16, 2013. Forecasters predict that a second wave of snow will envelop the intermountain West and leave behind up to another six inches of snow in Denver before moving out on to the eastern plains.
David Zalubowski/AP

There have been at least 30 power failures in the US this year that can be blamed on a nutty culprit: squirrels. The squirrelly rodents are such a hassle because they spend their entire lives teething.

Some security experts rate the risk of squirrel damage to the electrical grid as much more serious than the risk of cyberattacks. The American Public Power Association believes the threat is highest in May, October, and November.

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The birds that routinely collide with airplanes

gull plane bird wildlife strike
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2009/01/its_a_bird_its_a_plane_.html
Vasiliy Baziuk/AP

The Federal Aviation Administration maintains a database of reported collisions between airplanes and animals. Strikes peak in summer and late fall, thanks to nestlings leaving home for the first time and birds migrating to their winter territories.

A special lab at the Smithsonian Institute identifies the types of birds responsible for strikes; gulls are the most common. Bird strikes cost millions of dollars a year, despite airports' attempts to keep birds away.

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