All creatures great and small flown into Heathrow airport
WHEN you are on a plane bound for Heathrow, you are probably thinking about a few annoying things.
You might be cursing the fact you have had to pay an extra £50 to stow your cabin baggage, wondering if they are going to run out of chicken curry by the time they get to you, or trying to get the in-flight headphones to work properly.
You are probably not thinking about the fact there is a huge rhinoceros stowed in the hold of the plane – but maybe you should be...
The deputy manager of the border control facility dubbed “Heathrow’s Ark” has revealed exclusively to the Gazette the incredible types of animals that often travel by plane right under your feet.
The amazing work done by his team includes everything from handling racehorses worth millions of pounds to catching escaped swans.
Ross Hayes, deputy manager of the Heathrow Animal Reception Centre (HARC) has helped to run the UK’s largest live animal border control facility for nearly two decades.
One of his favourite wild tales took place very early on in his career, when a swan decided it was done with travel mid-transit.
He and airport security staff were forced to chase the bird around a Heathrow runway, managing to safely catch it in a blanket.
“The concrete surface has a rippling effect and sometimes waterfowl think ‘that’s a brilliant piece of water to land in – I’ll land in that’, and instead they find themselves on one of busiest runways in the world,” he said.
While the UK’s other airports can process simpler imports like cats, dogs and ferrets, HARC takes on the exotic cases as the airport is the gateway to Europe.
They even handle exotic cats enroute to zoos in the UK and Europe, including tigers, which were transferred to London Zoo last year.
Australian species are a favourite among Ark staff because native species from down under are rarely sent overseas, Mr Hayes says.
“They are very protective of their flora and fauna so if we see anything that comes over from Australia, it’s quite a treat,” he said.
Last year, a wombat, koala and giant sharp-clawed cassowary – known as the “world’s deadliest bird”– came through Heathrow.
For those of us feeling job-envy, Mr Hayes says because the team is focused on bio-security and checking for breaches of animal welfare, they do not spend all day cuddling puppies. “It’s a hands-off approach,” he said. However, he concedes, just like their human airline passengers, some animals do need some comfort after a very long flight.
Some first class passengers are especially delicate cargo – legendary Melbourne Cup winning retired racehorse Black Caviar, insured for millions, has travelled through the facility, Mr Hayes reveals.
Sometimes the furry cargo arrives on jets designed to move animals en-masse with the seats removed.
If you thought your snoring seat-mate was a pain, spare a thought for some unlikely long-haul travelling companions – last year dozens of horses and alpaca arrived together sharing one flight, says Mr Hayes.
He says the largest craft are able to safely fly enormous animal cargo in the hold with passengers on the same trip.
“You can fit a rhinoceros on a plane. When you get on a flight there’s a very good chance in the hold of the craft there is a cat or dog there.”
Travellers are also sharing their flights with live sharks in the hold, Mr Hayes confirms, adding: “They travel in large aquatic tanks.”
Forget two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree – try 34 alpacas, 21 ferrets, and two pigs.
A Freedom of Information response from the City of London Corporation, which has owned and run HARC since 1976, has revealed the scale of the menagerie its handlers process through the ‘Ark’ each year. Among them are 49,487 reptiles, 1,799 amphibians, 314 horses, 55 rabbits, 36 pet birds, 22 sheep, 18 rodents, ten cattle, and two deer.
There were also some very glamorous visitors, as more than 40 million pupae were processed.
Mr Hayes says most are butterflies in their chrysalis phases destined for live exhibitions and collections.
More than 27 million fish were declared, including sharks.
Many more were destined for the nation’s fishtanks.
Another 41,436 living plants and corals were imported to decorate their homes.
About 2.4 million eggs arrived at the border in the past year too, many of them imported to be used in avian vaccines, Mr Hayes says.
Of course, plenty of us imported lessexotic animals, with 9,818 dogs, 5,310 cats, and 514 birds declared at the UK border at Heathrow.
While escapes are rare, sometimes Houdini-like mischief happens in the cages during transit, and flights have been known to arrive bearing a surprise greeting, Mr Hayes reveals.
“We have had scenarios where the loaders have opened the doors and there is an Alsatian staring straight back at them.”