To Kill a Goofy Bird
I have no idea why this has crossed my radar screen, but its a rather ridiculous story on how brutal police are when dealing with runaway large flightless fowl. The police can perform a pit maneuver at high speeds, can yank a suspect through a car window, and fearlessly confront drunken spouses in domestic disputes. But their only solution to a big ugly bird? Shoot it.
From the AP here:
GRANITE CITY, Ill. – Packing 100 pounds on its 5-foot frame, the big bird gave police in this St. Louis suburb a mighty run, confounding them all six times someone reported the ostrich-like beast bugging motorists last weekend along busy Illinois Route 3.
Police finally caught up to the claw-footed menace Monday and ended the ruckus once and for all, cornering the emu, a cousin to the ostrich, and shooting it dead out of fear it’d again wander into traffic and kill someone.
In June, police in Carbondale, about 100 miles south of Granite City, needed five shotgun blasts and three rounds from a rifle to dispatch one of the flightless birds after cornering it in a residential area, where it was said to have even pecked on a home’s window.
And in Wisconsin last week, an emu found wandering one town’s streets was tranquilized by a veterinarian and returned to its owner after police efforts to halt the bird with a stun gun didn’t work.
Meat from the emu slain here was being processed by a Granite City police officer who hunts and would be donated to local food pantries, Miller said.
So I guess the cops in these towns dont have an animal control unit? No tranquilizer guns? One of them tried to use a stun gun? I bet that only pissed him off! Click here to see how Mike Rowe captures ostriches. Im sure it would work on an emu too. Just walk up, grab it by the neck and drop a sack over its head.
And the homeless in town have to eat the ugly big bird. As if it didnt suck bad enough to have to face a pending winter as an “urban outdoorsman,” the city force-feeds you the freak animals they gun down on the city streets.
