"Every year in the Canadian winter, powerlines would fail due to the weight of the snow. It took many days to build up enough to break a line so they employed a team to walk the routes and shake the poles to loosen the snow.

One day they saw a bear shaking the poles and realized that if they could get the bear to do it they wouldn’t need to walk the route.

So they gave one guy a bucket of honey and he’d walk the route painting the sides of the poles with honey to attract the bears. It worked for a few more years But this still takes a lot of time to do.

So then they had the idea of flying a helicopter along the route with a trained sniper with honey paintballs that he’d shoot the poles with.

On its maiden flight the helicopter passed the lines and the downdraft blew away all of the snow.

The flights continue to this day but without the sniper."

–GingerPenguin