Sunday, June 17, 2007

"Milan airport shut by hare plague"

...might just be one of the best headlines ever.

Also, hares disrupting ground radar? Awesome.


Officials have been forced to suspend flights into an airport in the Italian city of Milan due to a plague of hares.The animals invaded the runways at Milan's Linate Airport - and affected the operation of vital equipment.

Airport bosses are baffled as to why the hare population at Linate has risen so dramatically in the past few months. Whatever the cause, the result has been chaos - in the past two weeks alone, two hares have ended up beneath the wheels of charter planes. They have also confused the ground radar that is meant to prevent a repeat of Italy's worst ever air crash, which left 118 people dead, at Linate in 2001.

Things have become so serious that officials have taken the unusual step of closing Linate for three hours - from first light on Sunday - while a team of local wildlife experts try to catch the 80 or so hares that have been causing the problem.

The hares will be taken to nature reserves around Milan - though officials have warned that they have not ruled out a cull if this fails.
I must admit that my possibly dubious assumptions about Italian attitudes to nature have been flummoxed by this. They're catching these hares alive and taking them to nature reserves? Waaaah! I shall be most displeased if I'm unable to scoff a plate of Lepre alla Piemontese next time I'm out there...

1 comment:

Chas S. Clifton said...

Airport bosses are baffled as to why the hare population at Linate has risen so dramatically in the past few months.

Perhaps because they have been doing what rabbits and hares are famed for doing best??