Crows Ravaging Japan's Internet

In the olden days of the computer world, it was bugs in the system. Now it's crows.

The Times of London reported today that Japan is being besieged by nesting jungle crows.

Their destructive and unpredictable behaviour during the annual May to June mating season is always highly problematic for the Japanese capital. But this year the aggressive ink-black birds have created a new headache by developing a seemingly insatiable taste for fibre-optic internet cable.

In the past six weeks, hundreds of homes and offices have reportedly been left without high-speed internet service after the crows discovered that broadband cable can be pecked into usable strips more easily than power cables or telephone copper wire ever could. Crows have discovered that the broadband cables, which are strung from telegraph poles across Tokyo, are the perfect consistency for building nests.

The destruction of the fibre-optic cable highlights the abject failure of a “war on crows” declared five years ago by Tokyo’s Metropolitan Governor, Shintaro Ishihara. Fifteen years ago Tokyo had a crow population of around 7,000; today it is estimated at around 33,000.

Let's hope that our internet providers are better at protecting their optic fibers than Japan's are.