Category Archives: Emus (the bird)

In recent emu (the bird) news: “Grandma recovering after emu accident,” from the Northwest Florida Daily News. Quite the odd story; here are the opening paragraphs:

LaReatha DeLoach’s biggest complaint Monday was not being able to play her Xbox because her arm hurt.

“She’s not your everyday grandma,” said Lacey DeLoach of her grandmother. “We told her she’s going to have to settle down and be a normal grandma for now.”

LaReatha suffered a pretty sizable gash on her right wrist after she and her grandchildren were herding the family’s pet emus onto a trailer for transport.

Because of an upcoming move, the family won’t be able to care for all the animals they once provided a home. Slowly they whittled away their menagerie of cows, turkeys, goats and horses and the emus were heading to their new home at the Alaqua Animal Refuge on Sunday.

By the way, the title of this post comes from one of the comments on the article page– I couldn’t resist.

It’s kind of a long story as to why, but I stumbled across “Wandering emus finally corraled,” in the Leader-Telegram, the local paper in the fine “Eau Claire, WI and the Chippewa Valley Since 1881.” It’s another story about loose but soon recaptured emus that again make me wonder why we are not the EMU emus. For example: “Lake Hallie Police Chief Cal Smokowicz said… ‘One citizen reported that the emus were walking on her deck, ‘pecking’ at her patio window. Another caller reported that the emus were chasing children.’” Any bird that can scare/chase children seems pretty worthy of being a mascot to me.

Anyway, according to the story, the Wisconsin emus appear to have gotten away from someone in the area who was raising them. And, according to the story, “There is no ordinance in the village against raising the birds.” Well, this got me to thinking: given the talk in Ypsilanti regarding an ordinance that would allow people to keep chickens (see, for example, this Mark Maynard post on the subject), I wonder about the viability/possibility of raising emus within city limits? I mean, wouldn’t that be kind of like raising big chickens? And since there doesn’t appear to be any ordinance in Ypsilanti that specifically says you can’t raise emus, well, doesn’t that mean it would be okay?

Man about town Steve Pierce sent me two unrelated emu (as in the bird) stories in one say. What are the odds?

First, the bad news: From the Fraser Coast Chronicle (I think this is near Brisbane, in Australia) comes this rather disturbing headline: Mary the emu hacked up by hungry homeless.

A homeless man who cut a sleeping emu’s throat at a zoo and hacked off its legs allegedly told police he slaughtered the bird because he was hungry.

Patrick James Andrews scaled the fence of Bundaberg’s Alexandra Park and Zoo on the night of December 23 before stabbing 30-year-old Mary the emu to death and mutilating the animal.

Horrified zoo staff discovered her bloodied body on Christmas Eve.

Yikes!

But in good emu news: from many sources, including the AP, “Emer the errant emu found safe after a month trip.”

Emer the errant emu is home after roaming free across northern Rhode Island for a month. The fugitive was profiled on television broadcasts. Authorities, area residents and owner Pamela Hood had tried to capture him. Yet he managed to outlast tranquilizer darts, traffic, freezing temperatures and hunger.

Finally on Saturday a Burrillville woman spotted Emer sauntering up her driveway. She walked the 6-foot-tall, 130-pound bird into a horse stall. Four-year-old Emer was 16 miles away from home.

Yet another reason to make the emu the EMU mascot: apparently, they have a bit of a wilderness survivalist streak in them. Sort of reminds me of the first Rambo movie….