MOBILE, Ala. - A 6-foot-tall, 150-pound emu that fell head over heels in love with an Alabama man and stalked him for days was turned loose Thursday on a farm populated by her own species.
"It was mating season and she took a fond liking to him," Diane Roberts, director of the Mobile, Alabama, Animal Rescue Foundation, told Reuters. "He had to ward her off with a boat paddle. She was absolutely intent that this was her mate."
The giant bird showed up at the home of Ed and Ann Stuardi last month, drinking from a bird bath and eating berries in their yard. They fed it dog food.
Last week the emu began following Ed Stuardi around. Then it became aggressive, chasing their cats. Stuardi tried to frighten the bird away by shooting his gun into the air. The emu just stood there, looking at him forlornly.
By Monday, it was making noises deep in its throat, a mating call Stuardi failed to recognize as the bird approached him. Shorter than than the bird, he held it off with a boat paddle.
Monday night and Tuesday, the Stuardis cowered inside their home. Ann Stuardi called the sheriff to beg for help but was told deputies didn't have the equipment to catch the bird. That's when Animal Rescue Foundation got involved.
"She pursued him. They had been feeding her, and when mating season hit, he almost got it. She had her heart set on this man," said Roberts.
"I've never seen an emu hold hostages," she said. "He wasn't aware what the bird wanted, or why she was stalking him. I've never seen one stalk a human with procreation in mind." Animal Rescue had been looking for the bird since Aug. 22, when it heard that a man had moved away from the area, abandoning three emus. The other two birds still have not been found.
It took several hours for the rescue team to persuade the bird to get into a horse trailer so it could be taken to a farm that cares for injured wildlife. Roberts said the emu's only injury was a broken heart, and it was released into an area with other emus, including several males.
"Hopefully she will meet another fellow and forget all about Mr. Stuardi. After all, he is a married man," Roberts said
Witch King's Love Triangle
Witch King's Love Triangle
Cartoon Law III
Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter. Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the speciality of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout-perfect hole. The threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyzes this reaction.
Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter. Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the speciality of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout-perfect hole. The threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyzes this reaction.
@Foul-What have you done to that bird??!! 
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