Don't count your cows before they are captured

It's been a summer of vastly different fates for animals on the run. Elephants that ran away from the circus went peacefully with police who nabbed them before they could catch a bus out of town. The majority of monkeys have eluded the authorities, with the minority being captured without harm.

But not all have gotten off so easily. An emu that was on the loose for two weeks in Maryland was shot by state troopers:

"We did it because residents had expressed concerns about their safety and the safety of their children... There also had been complaints that the emu was getting on roads, blocking traffic and causing hazards."

The same fate befell an escaped macaque in Tennessee who attacked a woman while she was washing her car:

"I had no idea he was even there. Then I could feel his teeth in the calf of my leg, and I really didn't know at that point what it was, I just knew I had to get it off me."

The monkey also injured a responding officer, at which point another shot and killed it.

For one animal in Germany, it could still go either way. Yvonne the cow escaped from a farm in Bavaria in May. She's been on the lam ever since, and become a sort of celebrity - but like with many reality stars, people are divided strongly for and against.

The police, who've failed to catch Yvonne all these months, have decided to authorize officers to shoot her. Apparently the last straw was when she jumped out in front of a police car, startling the officers and then despite being so close, getting away. (Authorities claim that such behavior proves she's a danger to traffic, but one has to wonder whether embarrassment is also a factor.)

On the other side, an animal sanctuary has actually purchased the cow, and is searching for her with all-terrain vehicles and infrared camera.

These people are such bunny-huggers that they would prefer not to use even tranquilizer darts - and instead, actually think it might work to appeal to sentiment. They've also purchased a former stall-mate of Yvonne's as well as that cow's calf and hope this will lure her in."After all, she has had a calf herself," says a representative with a bad case of maudlin anthropomorphism.

Yvonne might want to be aware of yet another recent escaped animal story as she considers her options: Back in July, a rhea escaped from an estate in Suffolk, England. The RSPCA was called in to expertly and humanely recapture it - after which the bird died while recovering from the tranquiliser.

So, even those well-meaning bunnyhuggers might end up not doing you any favors, Yvonne: maybe it would be best to give yourself up.

Anti-Emu Heroics from South Carolina

This blog has reported more than once on the recurring problem of emus on the loose. Setting a high standard for how to react in this situation were a group of citizens of Rock Hill, South Carolina:

Dauntless but "sure enough there was an ostrich runnin' right by my nose so I couldn't just sit by and do nothin'," house painter Jerry Gibson armed himself with an electric drop cord Tuesday morning and took off running after the giant bird that ran 5 feet from his unbelieving eyes.

The large flightless bird was actually an emu, but no one stopped to consult a reference book. Rather, neighbors leapt to assist, or at least encourage.

"Get him!" screamed Ginger Strong in her bed slippers.
"Get a rope!" howled animal rescuer Sheila Dover.
"Get this rope around his neck!" screamed out Billy Grayson, who sure enough had a rope around his neck for just that purpose.

If you've never been up close with an emu, don't downplay the nerve required here. They've got feet like a dinosaur and an attitude to match:

"Figured I could get up to him and lasso him," said Gibson. "I was right about gettin' up to him. Had him by the neck feathers. Wrong about the lassoing though. And he sure give me a fight when I tried to grab a hold of him. Tough sucker, strong, he run off on me."

Gibson tells no tales either, as that emu scraped him on his leg and arm after he pulled a sneak attack near a fence just off Main Street. Although Gibson grabbed onto that emu like a mother-in-law grabbing a purse off a 75-percent-off sale rack, he got bullrushed by the emu for his trouble and left bloodied yet unbowed.

And, showing that it's never too late to join the fight against bad animal behavior, the hero of the day was a 75-year-old:

The chase added dozens of Pied Piper-like chasers including the cops, and culminated with the emu's capture by a veteran emu wrangler who just so happens to be a senior citizen with Popeye forearms named Bobby Mangrum. Mangrum was armed with nothing but a fishing net and a bellyful of courage.

"Got him!" Mangrum called out as he tackled the bird, then got some help to keep the emu down until Mangrum could tie the emu up with a dog leash an officer named Sgt. Lee McKellar grabbed from one of the chasers just in the nick of time.

Read the whole story by Andrew Dys at the Herald Online. I mean it, go read this one; I'm really going to have to start giving some kind of award for local coverage of bad animals, and along with the recent goose story from Illinois, this one's a definite nominee.

Lessons for the New Year

To start the new year off right, a collection of stories demonstrating how to - and how not to - treat animals that are behaving badly.

YES:
- Man bites snake in India:

A gardener who was bitten by a snake gave as good as he got, or better. He bit the snake back, and kept chewing until he felt rather ill, vomited, and fainted, but came out on top in the end:

"I was angry when the snake bit me on my finger. I bit it back because that was my way of taking revenge," Ramesh told doctors after regaining consciousness.

His condition is stable. The snake is dead.

- A goat in Germany was jailed for disrupting traffic, and insulted as well:

The only remarks on the arrest papers were "smells very bad."

The goat is being fed bread and water and as is clear from the photo above, his accomodations are suitably spartan.

Traffic enforcement on animal violators seems to be taken more seriously in some places than others. We've seen a dog get away with crashing a car into a store in Australia and everybody making excuses for a crocodile in Turkey.

Let's resolve in the new year not to take those two cases as precedent and work harder to lock up goats and handcuff bulls and big birds who disrupt travel.

NO:
-On the other end of the spectrum from the police department's goat diet of bread and water, we have a report of a zoo hiring a children's chef to make a special Christmas meal for a fussy baby lemur:

Zoo keepers have tried to tempt the animal with a variety of treats, but so far the youngster has turned his nose up at almost everything on offer.

So Mrs Karmel was drafted in to ensure he eats his Christmas dinner.

"He's quite fussy, like most kids are," she said. "He doesn't like vegetables but he likes fruit. The trouble with him is that he is fickle - one day he likes something and the next day he won't eat it."

-Even worse, on the other end of spectrum from the snake-biting gardener, the past year saw victims of shark attacks, including a man who had his arm bitten off by a shark, lobbying for shark conservation.

Enough said. You know what to do.

Bad birds bad birds, whatcha gonna do...

Cops taser escaped emu in southwest Washington city

CAMAS, Wash. (AP) - Of all the drunk, belligerent or otherwise threatening subjects to meet the wrong end of a police Taser, the one stunned Tuesday in Camas stands out for his name alone.

There it is, on the front page of Clark County sheriff's office report 08-14151:

LAST NAME: EMU.

FIRST NAME: BIG.

MIDDLE NAME: BIRD....

Deputy Gregory Chaney Tasered the emu, while Garrison bound the bird's feet.

Sergeant James Eastman kept his rifle on the bird, just in case.

Garrison took his emu home. He understands why people were afraid of his emu's feet, and said he was fine with the use of the Taser.

"They are dangerous (birds)," he said. "They've ripped three pairs of jeans right off my body."

(Emu foot photo from Flickr user Terwilliger911.)