It seems that animals are fed up with human activity and technology.
Jellyfish have disabled a nuclear reactor in northern France for the second time, and this is far from the only attack nature has made on our infrastructure in recent years.
It's unclear whether these sticky sea creatures were a target of French energy policy or simply lost; there has been no official comment from them.
However, given that this happens two years in a row and each time on the same date, everything looks quite coordinated.
Four units of the Gravelines nuclear power plant were shut down on August 11, 2025, due to a "massive and unpredictable infestation of jellyfish" in pumping stations for water used to cool the reactors, EDF said. (Samir Al-Doumi/AFP)
As Politico reports, the Gravelines nuclear power plant spent hundreds of thousands of euros in 2025 to prevent similar incidents, but just 12 months later, the same thing happened again.
The shutdown took place as a precaution after an excess of jellyfish clogged pumping systems that the power plant depends on.
Jokes aside, this incident is a serious consequence of climate change.
Rising water temperatures can promote increased amounts of plankton and the animals that jellyfish feed on, as well as accelerate life cycles and extend breeding seasons.
French energy company EDF reports that fishing vessels are now patrolling the waters around the clock to prevent jellyfish from congregating near the nuclear power plant. Full operations are expected to resume in the coming days.
Crows pecking at prey were captured in the act at LIGO. (Robert Schofield)
Jellyfish aren't the only ones that have a habit of disrupting human-made energy infrastructure.
Last year, a single raccoon caused more than 1,000 power outages in Connecticut, CT Insider reported.
It is not known exactly what the raccoon did, but it is known that it somehow entered the substation and damaged the equipment located there.
As a result of the unintentional act of sabotage, more than 2,500 customers in the area were left without power at one point, although repairs were quickly carried out.
Sometimes such animal incidents touch the very depths of science – for example, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in Washington.
CERN is currently undergoing extensive maintenance and modernization work. (CERN)
As recorded in the flight logs for July 2017, crows, pecking at the ice-covered cooling pipe, caused vibrations that affected the observatory's sensitive instruments. The birds' pecking, in effect, disrupted data collection.
Suspecting that crows might be the cause of some of the observatory's measurement anomalies, the researchers took photographs of the birds on-site during the observations. Furthermore, when the observatory team artificially created pecking marks on the pipe, it led to the same data errors as before.
As Forbes reports, the area was then redesigned so that the cooling pipes would freeze, meaning the crows had to drink water elsewhere.
And then there is the mysterious case of the baguette from CERN.
A 2009 bulletin from the particle physics laboratory CERN (home to the Large Hadron Collider) describes an incident in which a power outage in the facility's cryogenic systems required several days of repairs.
No one knows exactly what caused the power outage, but feathers and a piece of bread were found at the scene. The most common theory is that a small piece of baguette may have gotten caught in the equipment.
As entertaining as these stories are, they also serve as a reminder of how human activity is interfering with the natural world around us.
Unintentionally, we infect animals with our diseases, alter their habitats, and change their behavior in a multitude of ways.
See also: Research has found that animals are thriving in the uninhabited zone of Chernobyl.
Given this, some resistance is perhaps to be expected.
In a 2022 study published in Scientific Reports journal A study conducted by scientists from the United States and Indonesia describes in detail how macaques in Bali learned to take objects from people, then exchange them for food, and then return them.
From jellyfish to monkeys, from electrical substations to gravitational wave detectors, there are signs that the animal world isn't very happy. Homo sapiens .
ScienceAlert articles are written, fact-checked, and edited by humans; they are never generated by artificial intelligence. Don't miss a single article; subscribe here.
Related news
-
Scientists overfed a tiny worm... And it began to produce a chain of clones.
-
Scientists have discovered a hidden fault beneath New Jersey that could cause the 2024 earthquake.
-
Stunning footage shows dolphins hunting using shells off Australia's east coast – and possibly passing on the skill to others.