Posted on 03/03/2010 5:32:49 PM PST by Shermy
By ABC-7 Reporter Abe Lubetkin
EL PASO, Texas - An emu on the loose ruffled the feathers of some morning commuters Tuesday morning on I-10 and Horizon.
At 6:45 a.m., drivers originally reported an ostrich on the roadway.
Emus look similar to ostriches but they're smaller.
El Paso County Sheriff's Deputies on the scene tried to contain the emu but they say the bird attacked a deputy, ripping off a part of his pants.
Deputies then worked with people passing by to subdue the bird.
The emu died as deputies were transporting it to an animal control center.
This incident follows a similar turn of events on Montana Avenue last Friday, when a different emu got loose.
That bird's owner came forward to claim the emu.
Authorities don't think the two incidents are connected.
But people who work with emus and ostriches said they're difficult animals.
"They're very stubborn. They're not easy to control," said Gene Licon, who owns the Licon Dairy and petting zoo in San Elizario.
He and his family have kept emus and ostriches on the premises for years, although they currently only have ostriches.
He said both birds can be downright mean.
"It's like trying to deal with a big chicken that doesn't know which way to go," he said.
"They manage to have real strong legs that have a real mean kick to them."
The Licon Dairy has two levels of fencing to keep the ostriches contained.
Authorities hope other emu owners do the same.
"If anybody has these types of animals, we urge them to please keep them contained and out of harm's way," said El Paso County Sheriff's Deputy Jesse Tovar, the department spokesman. AddThis Social Bookmark Button
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Emu/ostrich burgers are pretty good.
Ahh,one of my favorite birdbrains.
Officers from Atlanta PD had to corral a wayward Zebra the other day. The animals and the earthquakes all acting whacky maybe the end of times is near... could we be so lucky?
How emusing.
I fought the law and the...law won...
One could wish,,,,, and I'm not even religious, just tired.
Don’t taze me, bro.
I did a marketing internship at a local science center while in college, and they had a zoo as well. The emus were notorious for finding weak spots in their enclosure; they were apparently bored even as large as it was. They’d get out en masse and run back and forth across Lawndale Drive, a busy four lane street with a fortunately low speed limit.
The comic relief of the startled looks from passing motorists were almost worth the price of getting out and running around trying to herd those six foot tall birds. Being pinched by a beak was worse than being kicked, as I recall. We never had one fall out and die, though. We never had to pin one down and transport it in a vehicle, either. We opened the gate and literally herded/corralled them back into the enclosure.
They eventually got funding for a better enclosure, rather than the fencing that they had at the time. Hasn’t happened since, as far as I know.
Yep, you and me both...
Years ago by a park in Sacramento a couple of geese were blocking a 4 way intersection. A city cop pulled up and got out of his car. He took out his baton and started trying to shoo the brids away. Well, the birds did not seem to have a lot of respect for authority and they got very aggressive.
The bill of a full sized goose is just about the genital height on a normal sized cop. Those geese backed that cop all around the intersection with everyone in the cars honking and laughing. I have always felt a little sorry for the cop. You just know he would have loved to draw his weapon and made a start on a goose dinner and a new down vest, but just couldn’t with all of the people watching.
Hmmm, a part of his pants? The parts of a pair of pants are the legs, the pockets, the zipper. The mind boggles.
-- 
Alost that funny was when our youngest son (11 or 12 years old) was feeding some geese bread bits and decided to grab one!
While we were howling at the lesson he was learning, he was trying to decide if it as safer to hang on or let go of a very angry goose.
It chased him all the way back to the car.
best to be careful when ya try and capture an emu that has been out partying all night.
Now, just for fun, let’s imagine that the owner of property adjacent to yours is a meth-brain who takes it into his head that he’s gonna get rich raising emus!
Well, emus are birds of the open velds and their first way of dealing with things that startle them is FLIGHT!
This bonehead pens them in a wooded area so every time the wind blows and the trees lash they try to flee. And those that succeeded ran all around the countryside terrorizing cows, horses and dogs and irritation their owners no end.
One of the birds made it to the nearest village and terrorized small kids and dogs for a couple of days until the cops told him to catch it or it would be put out of their misery.
The owner calls in the tv crew and cries about his poor “baby” etc. While the rest of the neighbors are praying they’ll eliminate the beast.
Well, I guess they managed to herd the darn thing back home and it was intermittantly peaceful....UNTIL we decided to do a timber harvest!
Yep, the sound of chainsaws and falling trees really set the birds off.
Next thing we know, we had been gone for the day and on our way home stopped at a local store where our daughter was working. She asked what channel 9 news wanted....HUH! It seems that thtv crew had stopped to ask directions to our road (private drive).
We just got there in time to turn on the tv and there on the 6 o’clock news was a story about these evil people and their evil loggers who were terrifying these poor “babies” and they had ran themselves into the fence—closeup of bloody feathers hanging on the fence with an evil logger cutting a tree in the background.
The next day the loggers were telling me what a hoot it was, they having never been on the 6 o’clock news before.
On tv the guy said that he had contacted his attorney about stopping the tree cutting and a letter DID arrive after the trees were cut..With the wrong name on it so I just told the PO no such person at that address, send it back.
Another neighbor told me later that he’s offered to help herd the emus into the barn but the owner refused. Must have thought he could make a buck or something.
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