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Residents of Kikuchi City in Kumamoto Prefecture, woke up Thursday morning to find a mob of emus, large flightless birds native to Australia, passing by their home. They immediately contacted city officials.
According to a report by the Yomiuri Shimbun, the emus had escaped from the Kikuchi Emu Tourist Farm.
The company that runs the farm uses the former site of an elementary school to raise 54 emus. About 20 of them are believed to have escaped. The company, city officials, and firefighters are still working to capture them. As of 11:30 a.m. Thursday, they had not been able to recapture 11 of them.
Emus are the second largest bird after the ostrich, reaching a maximum height of nearly two meters. Although they are mostly gentle and cannot fly, they can run at speeds of up to 50 kilometers per hour and have been known to attack when threatened, inflicting damage with the claws of their powerful three-toed feet.
The city of Kikuchi urged people to contact the city office if they see one and not to approach unnecessarily.
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17 Comments
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Jacko
I guess that calls for an emu-gency......
Mr Kipling
A "mob" of emus..? Yes the correct word for a bunch of emus is mob.
Learn something everyday..
diagonalslip
hope a panicked populace doesn't catch them and subject them to a kangaroo court....
Desert Tortoise
Emus are such goofy creatures. Unlike Ostriches which can be aggressive Emus are basically friendly and curious, and kind of lovable. But boy are they ever goofy ^_^
Sheikh Yerboaby
back in the early 2000s when I was back packing around Australia, I was somewhere in a little town up in the north west of WA. We check into the hostel and the guy on the desk is giving us the "what to do if you see an emu" speech......around town? Yeah sure........walk down to the bottle-o for a slab of beer and on the way back, on the other side of the street were 2 emus casually walking down the road side by side, chattering away like a couple of ba-sans!! It was so funny
David Brent
It's sad. The police will contact local "hunters", who will then shoot them due to "public safety". They do it all the time with black bears here.
purple_depressed_bacon
Run ems, run! Be free!
tokyo-star
baby emus are so cute, stripes and all!!
as an aussie, can I just take this moment to verify how everyone here is pronouncing the animal, emu? I found it extremely disturbing to hear an american say "eemooo" for the first time several years ago, wtf.
around the billabong where i hail from, its pronounced eee-myuuu. even in japan, its エミュー, which is close enough and ive heard it so frequently from tourists that it doesnt bug me. but "ee-mooo" ??! is my recollection right? because its utterly disturbing if it is.
David Brent
At least the black bears end up on the table (delicious, had it a few times now in Hokkaido)!
Black bears don't live in Hokkaido.
ebisen
If the previous comments were trying to emuse us, it didn't work.
People in that city better be careful, an emu could easily cremu.
Ricky Kaminski13
Invasive species. Wonder how they’ll fair agains the boars! Who wouldn’t give a months salary to watch them trying to catch and retire these birds?? Put to the right music it’d be pure gold.
tooheysnew
Next, we’ll have drop bears
serendipitous1
If the emus can learn to not stick their necks out, they might be able to remain free!
ElecFixer
Theres an emu farm in Chiba we stopped at
they do a great grill. expensive but finger lickin good
Sean
At least the black bears end up on the table (delicious, had it a few times now in Hokkaido)! Emu aren't so bad either. I was once searched at Narita (incoming from Brisbane) after failing to declare anything. All they found were a few packets of Emu jerky. Apparently a prohibited item in Japan (at least to bring through the airport, looks like you can have a full farm of them though!). I had to sign a prosecution waivure and the officer informed me it was all destined for the bin. I pleaded with him to share it with his mates at lunchtime, you can't throw away good jerky like that!!