TOKYO’S futuristic image as the world’s most technologically advanced broadband internet-enabled city is under attack from a vicious but decidedly low-tech foe: urban-dwelling 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.
Tokyo has become a victim of its own rush to go broadband. 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.