Don Baccus writes:

>Earlier folks said "God did it" when such events happened.

Earlier, folks didn't have airplanes.

>Baggage holds typically aren't pressurized, either, though it would
>be warmer than a wheel well.


Pets on planes are usually shipped in baggage compartments. To my
knowledge, in the US, it is now illegal to ship a live animal in a
non-pressurized compartment (because so many pets used to die that way).
Many planes now have pressurized, temperature-controlled baggage
compartments.

>Is there a single documented case of a bird being tranported a
>couple of thousand miles by accident, undetected, and successfully
>establishing itself in either a wheel-well or baggage department?


Ummm. Imagine you're a baggage handler. You're wearing ear protection,
slinging heavy bags in the heat in Mexico, on a tight schedule because the
plane is boarded and scheduled for take-off in minutes. A tiny bird zips
into the baggage compartment, perhaps following the bright red ribbon
someone has attached to their luggage to make it easy to find. Do you (the
baggage handler) whip out your field notebook and write it down, even
assuming you see it? The baggage doors are slammed shut, the compartment,
the bird spends a few confusing hours in the dark, the doors are opened in
Victoria, the bird sees a patch of light, zips out in a tiny blur of
feathers past the next set of harried, ear-muffed baggage handlers.

>You've exchanged one unlikely, undocumented form of transport
>(natural) for another unlikely, undocumented form of transport
>(via accidental human transport).

Who is going to be documenting an event like this, and, more importantly,
why is it so unlikely? I recently heard on NPR that a Brown Tree Snake
slipped out of plane after it landed in Hawaii from Guam. (I don't remember
whether it was in the wheel well or baggage compartment.) Snakes move a lot
slower than birds, but airport personnel were unable to capture it.

Kelly Cassidy