PICTURE this: you get home from work to see that your dogs have had a field day with the exposed cables at home. Or perhaps you want to start a car you have not used in a long time, but lift the bonnet only to find that rats have gotten to the internal wiring first. With wires so ubiquitous in modern homes and devices, even the slightest damage to any wiring can cause a big headache. Rodents are the main culprits behind such incidents, but dogs, cats, insects, and even sharks have been known to take a chomp out of wires if given the opportunity.
Is it because animals find cables tasty, or is there another reason for this behaviour?
Verdict:
MOSTLY FALSE
For the most part, animals do not find cables and wiring tasty. Most animals are aware that such cables are inedible, and their motivation for taking a bite out of wires are often not due to hunger.
Different animals may gnaw on things for different reasons.
Mice and other rodents with continuously-growing incisors, such as squirrels and rabbits, are instinctually driven to chew on firm objects to maintain their dental health.
In the wild, the most common chewing enrichment would be bark and sticks in addition to any hard objects in a rodents’ diet. This includes seeds, fruit with tough peels, and hard-shelled creatures such as snails.
However, rodents will generally gnaw on anything they can get their teeth on, even wires and metal!
Even species that are not instinctive "gnawers" tend to use their mouths to explore their environment.
By mouthing or nibbling on various items, animals can gain more information about the texture, shape, and consistency of the things around them. They can also gather taste-related information to determine if something is edible.
Animals with more dexterous mouths may use their mouths as a proxy "hand" to manipulate objects. This assists with grabbing, carrying, or moving things for various purposes, such as building nests or gathering food.
Teething juveniles, especially puppies, may also chew on things to relieve the itch and pain of their changing teeth.
These are just a few of the many reasons why animals chew on the things around them.
The only time an animal may mistake wiring for food is if there are elements of their natural diet (or other edible substances) within the cables.
Even then, a critter would have to be starving to settle for eating wires over other, more conventional foodstuff.
That being said, several lawsuits have actually been filed in the United States against carmakers over environmentally-friendly soy-based cables, which owners claim serve as an attractive food source for vermin!
References:
1. https://www.nature.com/
2. https://www.petfinder.com/
3. https://www.wired.com/2014/08/
