By Brooke Baitinger
The Charlotte Observer
WELD COUNTY, Colo. — A driver spotted an oversized bird in the road and called authorities to report the “ostrich” sighting, Colorado officials said.
But when animal control deputies arrived, they realized it wasn’t an ostrich at all, the Weld County Sheriff’s Office said in social media posts on Tuesday, March 5.
“We learned we were not dealing with one of the largest birds in the world, but maybe the second or third largest bird in the world (depending on your source) an emu!” officials said in a post.
Officials shared the footage from the deputy’s body-worn camera showing how he wrangled the big bird away from the road and into a homeowner’s fenced-in yard nearby.
The video shows the deputy reaching out the window and holding the emu by his neck so he doesn’t escape.
“Uh uh,” the deputy says as the bird struggles against him and tries to break away as he opens the car door. “Nope.”
The emu hisses as the deputy climbs out and secures a rope around his neck.
“Relax buddy,” the deputy said, unknowingly calling the bird by his name. “Come on.”
The deputy explains into his radio that he has the emu by the neck and would try to walk him into the fenced-in yard. The bird struggles to break away as they walk through the field away from the road, the video shows.
Then the unthinkable happened — a passerby recognized the bird as Buddy the emu and called up his owner, Andrew Leffler, officials said.
“We got lucky,” Leffler told deputies as he loaded Buddy into his trailer to take him home.
Some joked about the emu’s behavior in comments on the video.
“Was that an indignant emu hiss I heard?” someone said.
Others commended the deputy on a job well done given the peculiar circumstances.
“I bet they didn’t teach that in Sheriff school,” someone said.
Weld County is about a 70-mile drive northeast from Denver.
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