An aircraft has reportedly been grounded for the past five days after more than 130 hamsters in the hold managed to escape their cages.
Maintenance workers have been trying to round up the power cable-eating rodents since the mass escape last Tuesday, Nov. 12, but 16 are still on the loose and unaccounted for.
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 Airbus 320 touched down in the Azores archipelago capital Ponta Delgada on Sao Miguel Island, belonging to Portugal.
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 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, local newspaper 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.
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 teeth have been shared.
