A plane came to a grinding halt on the tarmac after a hedgehog waddled in the way of the jet.

The Air New Zealand flight was delayed earlier this week when its path crossed with that of a small spikey mammal.

At Dunedin Airport in New Zealand on Monday, 27 February, the flight from Auckland had just landed when the eagle-eyed pilot spotted the pin-cushion inspired animal on the tarmac.

The captain, who was taxiing the plane at the time, brought it to an abrupt stop before telling passengers what had happened.

Passenger Arthur Taylor told Stuff: “The captain said, ‘I’m sorry I’m going to have to make an announcement that I’ve never made before, there is a hedgehog on the runaway’.

“The plane came to a grinding halt. I think they were worried they would suck the bloody thing up in an engine.”

Firefighters were called to the runway and brought the hedgehog to safety.

Passengers only had to wait a few minutes before the journey got back on its way.

A spokesperson for Dunedin Airport said everyone was welcome there, including hedgehogs, and that the organisation aims not to destroy wildlife.

A spokesperson for Air New Zealand told The Independent: “We can confirm NZ675 had a small delay of 5 minutes while the aircraft waited for a hedgehog to be removed."

While the hedgehog is a key symbol of bucolic simplicity in the UK, and their dwindling numbers is a great cause for concern, they have a slightly different reputation in New Zealand.

The adorable animals were introduced by settlers to remind them of their gardens back in England, only for them to dominate a landscape with a vastly different food chain than their home land.

Whereas in Europe they are hunted by pine martens, foxes and badgers, New Zealand’s hedgehogs have next to no predators.

This allows them to wander through gardens and woodland eating enormous numbers of native species.

Nick Foster, a PhD candidate at the University of Otago, said they eat native lizards, bird eggs, and wētā – a large flightless cricket found only in New Zealand.

One study found 283 wētā legs in a single hedgehog stomac, which means it had eaten around 60 animals in a day.

As a result authorities in the country have launched a campaign to eradicate the adorable creatures by 2050.

"Many ground-set trapping programmes will have hedgehogs as part of their catch, eg in open country like Central Otago, braided river systems in South Canterbury or forest ecosystems all over the North Island," the government plan reads.

"This will help protect animals as diverse as kaki/black stilt, Cromwell chafer beetle, Grand skin, black-fronted tern and weta.

"Don't encourage them into your backyard by creating burrows for them or leaving milk out.

"Set a suitable trap for the situation you are in (suburban or rural)."

Source:
courtesy of MIRROR

by Milo Boyd, Travel Reporter

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