Butter-Fingered Osprey Drops Fish And Causes Fire, Power Outage In Canadian Town

A town in Canada found itself in a bizarre situation, and it was all thanks to an osprey that just couldn't hang on to its lunch.

According to Local 12, fire crews in Ashcroft, British Columbia, were dispatched to a landscape fire on July 30 around noon local time.

The crews — along with road crew members and workers from the local power company — ended up blasting 4,800 gallons of water on the blaze to put it out. Once that was done, it was time to start figuring out what caused the fire, which also led to a power outage.

They didn't have to look too long to realize that the entire blaze had been started by a fish.

Or, more specifically, a fish that some klutzy osprey dropped on the power lines.

I'm not a bird guy, but I always thought ospreys were pretty cool. They skim across the water, snag themselves a fish, and then head off back to wherever it is they plan to eat to start chowing down.

an osprey on the hunt, in flight with a fish caught in a lake in northern finland

Well, somewhere between whichever body of water that bird plucked its dinner out of and where it planned to eat, it let go of the fish. It went plummeting to earth, hit some powerlines, and produced sparks, which in turn lit some brush on fire.

What a freak accident that is… if it is an accident.

Look, fish can be tricky to hold on to. They're slippery, they're wet, and they wriggle all over the place. But that's with human hands. I find it tough to believe that ospreys like this one or the one that dropped a small hammerhead shark on some stoners playing frisbee golf in South Carolina suddenly started dropping fish left and right.

They've got talons strong and sharp enough to pluck a trout out of a river, but after that, they're fumbling worse than Desean Jackson when he's about to cross the goal line.

I'm not claiming they're up to something… but I've got my eyes on ospreys these days.