An aircraft has reportedly been grounded for the past five days after more than 130 hamsters in the hold managed to escape their cages.
Respected Portuguese daily Correio da Manga says maintenance workers have been trying to round up the power cable-eating rodents since the mass escape on Tuesday but 16 are still on the loose.
Baggage handlers are said to have discovered the cages the animals were in had been damaged and 132 of them were roaming around the cargo hold when the £83 million Airbus 320 touched down in the Azores archipelago capital Ponta Delgada on Sao Miguel Island.
The search for them started after passengers on board the plane disembarked and their luggage was removed.
The hamsters were reportedly part of a delivery for a pet shop on the island which also included ferrets and some birds.
The mass four-legged break-out prevented the aircraft from returning to the Portuguese capital Lisbon where it had started its journey and the search to hunt down the remaining rodents was continuing last night, Correio da Manha said.
Sources told the paper the animals had been accepted on the flight after being turned away from an earlier one because the cages ‘didn’t meet accepted standards.’
TAP Air Portugal, the airline operating the flight, has yet to make any official comment.
An aircraft has reportedly been grounded for the past five days after more than 130 hamsters in the hold managed to escape their cages
Photos of some of the hamsters being brought out of their hiding places by workers with gloves on their hands to protect them from the animals’ sharp gnashers have been published
Photos of some of the hamsters being brought out of their hiding places by workers with gloves on their hands to protect them from the animals’ sharp gnashers have been published.
The rodents’ incisors, said to be harder than lead, aluminium, iron and copper, have to be continually worn down and kept sharp which is why they are constantly gnawing.
The natural grinding action of chewing on toys, hay, and other food items, causes the teeth to stay at an ideal length in normal herbivores, but many need to have their teeth manually cut regularly due to several health and genetic factors.
Hamster owners are advised to make sure all loose electrical wires and cords are tucked out of sight behind appliances or confined to areas where pets cannot get to them.
One online advice site says in a blog titled: ‘What to do if your hamster escapes’: ‘Check anything that has wires – the back of a TV/internet box/anything with electrical wires that is on floor level really.
‘Hamsters love to chew and bit and once a wire is bitten not only will you have to replace a cable, you may also have a deep-fried hamster (nope, that’s not a foreign delicacy).
‘If you can see your hamster lurking by wires you can grab them or try to usher them into a different space just to take them away from potential danger.’