Ammon News - A network outage that caused several government offices to lose phone and Internet services in an Ohio county is now being blamed on a meddlesome squirrel.

Medina County officials said the Feb. 20 outage that knocked out phone and Internet services at government facilities including the county prosecutor's office was initially thought to be caused by contractors accidentally slicing through underground fiber.

County Administrator Matt Springer revealed at last week's commissioner's meeting that the true cause has now been found to be a squirrel that built a nest inside the fiber infrastructure and chewed through multiple lines.

"It's hard to make this stuff up," Springer said at the meeting.

He said steps are being taken with Internet providers and the local fiber network to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Squirrels are known menaces to utility companies, having been blamed for numerous power outages across the United States over the years.