Police have shot and killed a 45kg, 1.5-metre emu that tormented drivers on a busy American highway.
Police in Illinois shot the bird on Monday out of fear that it could cause a fatal accident, after six reports that the big bird had wandered onto the highway.
Authorities said they had no idea where the bird came from.
"We figured someone would call and say, 'That's my bird!'", Granite City police chief Rich Miller said.
"But we still haven't heard from anybody."
Raised for their eggs, oil and protein-rich lean meat, emus have become a bit of a farming trend in southern Illinois, where they are not native.
In June, police in Carbondale, about 160km 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 pecked on a home's window.
"We figured that sooner or later our luck was gonna run out" and the emu would cause a crash," Miller said of the bird on the highway.
"If we had some way to catch it, somewhere to take it, that'd be fine. The ability for us to be second-guessed is always out there, but we decided that now is the time to end this."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/unusual-t...246240361.html
Police in Illinois shot the bird on Monday out of fear that it could cause a fatal accident, after six reports that the big bird had wandered onto the highway.
Authorities said they had no idea where the bird came from.
"We figured someone would call and say, 'That's my bird!'", Granite City police chief Rich Miller said.
"But we still haven't heard from anybody."
Raised for their eggs, oil and protein-rich lean meat, emus have become a bit of a farming trend in southern Illinois, where they are not native.
In June, police in Carbondale, about 160km 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 pecked on a home's window.
"We figured that sooner or later our luck was gonna run out" and the emu would cause a crash," Miller said of the bird on the highway.
"If we had some way to catch it, somewhere to take it, that'd be fine. The ability for us to be second-guessed is always out there, but we decided that now is the time to end this."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/unusual-t...246240361.html
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