An Emu that walked up to me yesterday along the Poudre river… anyone know if animal control caught it?
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@gallusrostromegalus you seem fairly likely to know if there's any big bird farms along the Poudre?
MOTHERFUCKER
I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT FUCKING HOUSE THAT EMU CAME FROM.
I THINK I KNOW THAT EXACT BIRD.
Hang on, I'm gonna leave Animal Control a message if they haven't rounded it up yet and then I'll explain.
OK north of Foco there's a large system of resivors around the Poudre River, and my parents live in a neighborhood around one. On the other side of the resivor, there's a guy who keeps "Pet" Emus. Now, his property backs up to the water, and Emus are not keen on swimming so as long as the water levels stayed high, the birds would stay in their yard.
Except.
It's a RESIVOR.
THAT THING THEY DRAIN WATER OUT OF.
So for a few years there every late summer the city would draw down the water, and the Emus would go "ooh! beach!" and they would go have an amble around the beach and peek in the neighbor's windows and generally terrorize everyone who was not ready to have a 6' dinosaur in thier vicinity.
I know this because when I was still living with my parents, My Dog and I were stalked by one for the better part of a week before they caught him.
So, apparently emus don't live much over a decade, and this was about 15 years ago now, so it's probably not the same bird but likely one of his offspring, but one morning I woke up from a weird scratching and bonking noise outside my bedroom window, thought the squirrels were having particularly Robust Intercourse outside, and rolled over to see an Emu looking in my window.
My bedroom was on the second floor.
Now, part of the roof is less than three feet from the ground which is how I guess he got up there, but now he couldn't work out how to get back down, and had taken to pecking at random bits of roof and window in hopes a solution might present itself. The dog we had at the time was Cody, a 90lb German Shepherd with a personality made entirely of Mashmallow Fluff. He was the sweetest of boys. Ceritifed Therapy Dog. Scared of Mice. Slept on my feet every night.
I recall rolling over, seeing the bird, thinking 'Man, I really hope this is one of those really vivid dreams because this would suck in real life' rolling back over, and seeing Cody on my other side, attempting to hide behind me, crying.
"Aw fuck."
So I go wake up my parents in the next room.
"Hey mom. There's an emu on the roof."
"...What?'
I pointed out the window in my parents room, where the Emu had helpfully followed me. Mom sat up, looked at the Emu, rolled over and asked Dad what the number for animal control was.
It took them
THREE HOURS
to get the Emu off the roof and Honestly I Do Not Blame The Bird, becuase that's a long way to the ground when you are six feet tall and have a brain the size of a peanut, and all Animal Control sent over was two High School Interns with Brooms. Eventually, he more or less fell off the short end, and immediately did a runner out of the yard and down the street, presumably homeward bound.
The next morning, I wake up.
Guess what is outside.
This time, Mom decides she's perfectly capable of hitting things with a broom until they fall off the roof by herself, and the emu is sent sprinting away in much shorter order.
Day after that he's not on the roof but instead in the garage. On top of the car. Stop Climbing things. We name him Jerry, because he feels like a Jerry.
He does not return the day after that.
Foolishly, we are relieved
NEXT MORNING, JERRY IS KICKING AT THE BACK DOOR, INDICATING HE WANTS TO BE LET IN.
Cody is in hysterics. He is a gentle creature, full of love, and desn't like it when there are mice in the house, or the rabbits fight in the yard. This massive, home-invading dinosaur is too much for him. Measures must be taken.
The Neighborhood website has been abuzz with Jerry sightings, and by now everyone knows to which address he must be returned. Also, that the guy has not put up a fence and jerry will be back again tomorrow.
Jerry is currently in the back yard. I am tasked with preventing Cody from having a total nervous breakdown while my parents chase him around the yard with brooms and a rake, until they herd him into the back of the minivan. Mom comes out with a bowl of peas (google indicated it was ok as a treat) and a piece of paper.
YOUR BIRD WILL BE RETURNED WHEN YOU POST PROOF OF A REAR FENCE
it read, in 72-point font, and she propped it in front of him where he sat, Dad taking pics while mom tossed him peas until they got one where he looked suitably bewildered, and posted it anonymously to the neighborhood website.
I assume he started building the fence when Jerry first went missing, but part of me also believes he installed a 10-high (to account for water level changes and the slope of his yard) 300ft long chain-link fence in less than three hours while Mom drove Jerry around to every vet clinic in the city to see if SOMEONE would hang onto him. I was tasked with sitting in the passenger seat with a broom and making sure Jerry stayed in the back. Which he did, actually. he sat very politely and looked out the windows the whole time, having a grand adventure.
He was returned to the house and the owner given an extremely loud and public lecture in the front yard about the responsibilities of animal husbandry and How Resivors Work.
I can only assume that the fense has fallen down and that the Son Of Jerry is having an even grander adventure.
This video was taken on 9/26/21 in the McMurry Natural Area for those of you in FoCo, so until we can confirm capture, stay out of the area, esp if you have dogs. Emus can kick hard enough to kill humans and animals.
I have an Update!
According to a local news correspondent, Jerry was hit by an 18-wheeler truck.
AND LIVED.
A woman saw the accident picked jerry up off the road and placed him in the back of her Hyundai Sonata, which I'm choosing to believe worked because Mom did such a good job bribing him with peas the last time he was in a car.
According to our souces he “revived himself” and came back to life while she was driving him to CSU vet services. She says CSU wouldn’t take him at first, which to be entirely fair to the staff, if I was an undergrad intern working an 8AM shift with a possible hangover, I wouldn't know how to handle the world's second-largest bush turkey either. But they checked him out and he just had some road rash.
Local News Team called CSU and they wouldn’t comment because they are protecting the “confidentiality of their client”, which makes it sound like animals are covered by HIPPA, but the truth is the humans that own them are.
The emu is 16, meaning this is bird is definitely old enough to have been the original Jerry, and has been returned home.
Now there are some Australians laughing in the notes and I would like to clarify something for them: Yes, I am perfectly aware that Emus are largely herbivores and not hunting me. The fact that they ARE large herbivores is what worries me because I live in a part of the continent that still has many of it's large land carnivores, and you can scare off a bear, your odds of getting attacked by a cougar* are worse than winning the lottery, and the coyotes are downright amicable.
But this SOB?
(Image Description: An Elk.)
This is ALSO a large herbivore with a handful of grapes for a brain that has no interest in consuming my flesh and generally doesn't give a fart about humans most of the time, but there is always a nonzero chance that this All-Terrain Asshole will RUN MY ASS DOWN AND STOMP ME INTO A FINE PASTE for accidentally invading it's mandatory 300ft radius of personal space, and we all know someone who had this very nearly happen to them, saw a tourist learn what thier intestines look like, or actually did get gored.
So to me, an Emu is basically a more nimble elk with EVEN BIGGER FOOT-KNIVES, and I'm not taking my dog to meet it.
Also, last time I told International Chat why I had to stop composting in September or we'd have ANOTHER bear break into the house, the Australians spent the better part of three hours screaming about how we all needed to shut up about the spiders if we had "Furry Fuckhands McMike" breaking into my house.
*If you're wndering why my parents are Like That: for cultural context, the guy in Foco who choked a cougar to death with his bare hands to survive it attacking him is a close neighbor. It's just like that out here sometimes.
Bonus Images from Local News Team:
Link to thier story, where the nice lady who rescued him thought he looked more like a "Clyde".
