MOSCOW, July 9 (RIA Novosti) - Some 80 turtles caused flight delays at New York's Kennedy Airport when they blocked one of the runways, the New York Post said on Thursday.

Turtle and plane collisions are quite rare, with only five such cases registered at the airport in 2000-2008. Officials believe that the reptiles were probably looking for a mating partner amid the spawning season.

"It's not unprecedented, but it doesn't happen a lot," a Port Authority spokesman, John Kelly, told the paper.

The turtles were spotted by a departing plane pilot when his aircraft ran over some of the reptiles, who had crawled onto the runway, which is surrounded by water on both sides.

It took wildlife control workers 35 minutes to remove a total of 78 diamondback turtles, and to release them back into the wild. The shutdown, however, resulted in flight delays of up to 1.5 hours.