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A power outage that knocked out power to a New Jersey community a week ago was due to an unlikely culprit: a fish that was apparently thrown by a bird and landed on a transformer, authorities said.
Sayreville police said Jersey Central Power and Light Company workers working on the August 12 blackout that knocked out power to a large area of Lower Sayreville found a fish in the transformer in the New Jersey community southwest of Staten Island in New York.
“We assume a bird dropped it while flying,” police said on their Facebook page. In a subsequent post, they had some fun, asking readers to remember the fish as “the victim of this senseless death,” calling him “Gilligan” and calling him “a hard-working family man” and “a father to thousands.” ”
The suspect, they said, “was last seen flying south,” and readers were urged not to attempt to apprehend him because “although not believed to be armed, he can still be very dangerous.”
Jersey Central Power and Light Company spokesman Chris Hoenig said animals, usually squirrels, are a common cause of power outages, but “fish are not on the list of frequent offenders.” He said an osprey was likely to blame for the power outage that affected some 2,100 Sayreville customers for less than two hours.
Hoenig said the Sayreville area has a large presence of ospreys, which were on the state’s endangered species list until less than a decade ago. The company has a very active osprey and raptor protection program that includes surveying and monitoring nests and relocating nests that are on his equipment or too close to power lines, he said.
Hoenig told CNN that the company appreciates customers’ patience during the outage, but also has sympathy for the suspicious bird that lost its lunch.
“If you’ve ever dropped your ice cream cone at the fair, you know the feeling,” he said.
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