This is your captain beeping! The plane is grounded after more than 130 hamsters in the hold manage to escape from their cages
A plane has reportedly been grounded for the past five days after more than 130 hamsters in the hold managed to escape from their cages.
Respected Portuguese daily Correio da Manga says maintenance workers have tried to round up the power cable-eating rodents since Tuesday’s mass escape, but 16 are still on the loose.
Baggage handlers are said to have discovered that the cages the animals were in were damaged and 132 of them were wandering around the cargo hold when the £83 million Airbus 320 landed in the capital of the Azores archipelago, Ponta Delgada on the island of Sao Miguel.
The search for them began after the passengers disembarked the plane and their luggage was removed.
The hamsters were reportedly part of a delivery to a pet shop on the island, which also included ferrets and some birds.
The mass escape on four legs prevented the plane from returning to the Portuguese capital Lisbon where it had started its journey and the search for the remaining rodents continued last night, Correio da Manha said.
Sources told the newspaper that the animals had been accepted onto the flight after being rejected from a previous flight because the cages ‘did not meet accepted standards’.
TAP Air Portugal, the airline operating the flight, has not yet made any official comment.
A plane has reportedly been grounded for the past five days after more than 130 hamsters in the hold managed to escape from their cages.
Pictures have been published of some hamsters being taken out of their hiding places by workers with gloves on their hands to protect them from the animals’ sharp crunches.
Pictures have been published of some hamsters being taken out of their hiding places by workers with gloves on their hands to protect them from the animals’ sharp crunches.
The rodents’ incisors, which are harder than lead, aluminum, iron and copper, must be constantly worn down and kept sharp. That’s why they gnaw constantly.
The natural grinding action of chewing toys, hay, and other food items keeps teeth at the ideal length in normal herbivores, but many need to have their teeth manually trimmed regularly due to various health and genetic factors.
Hamster owners are advised to ensure that all loose electrical wires and cords are tucked out of sight behind appliances or confined in areas where pets cannot reach them.
An online advice site says in a blog entitled: ‘What to do if your hamster escapes’: ‘Check anything with wires attached to it – the back of a TV/internet box/anything with electrical wires that is at floor level.
‘Hamsters love to chew and bite and once a wire is bitten, not only will you have to replace a wire, but you may also have a fried hamster (no, that’s not a foreign delicacy).
‘If you see your hamster lurking on wires, you can grab him or try to lead him to another area, just to get him away from potential danger.’
