PUYALLUP, Wash. — A pet emu has been reunited with her family after going missing for 18 days.
At the beginning of the month, a Puyallup-area family lost their pet emu and asked for the community’s help in finding her.
Rachelle Cassidy told KIRO 7 News on Tuesday, September 2 that the two-year-old bird had disappeared from her yard over the weekend.
She said the bird should be easy to spot.
“She’s like five and a half feet tall when she stands up so she is definitely not discrete,” Cassidy told KIRO 7.
She said that Saturday morning, she went out to feed her three birds when she noticed her gate was open.
One of her male emus was still in the enclosure, but the other one, and the female, were nowhere to be seen.
“My initial thought was okay who left the gate open?”
Cassidy said it has a difficult latch, and that her family remembers closing the gate and putting a blanket over the latch.
She tells KIRO 7 she is worried someone wandered by and opened it.
“I had a meltdown and ran around the neighborhood looking for them, called everybody I knew to come out and start a search party,” Cassidy said.
After searching the area, Cassidy said she found her male emu near a retainer pond by her house.
“He was a bit shaken up because we had to hike him out of the pretty steep ravine,” Cassidy said.
“We had to pick him up and carry him out of there, which they don’t like, but he seems to be recovered now.”
Cassidy said the female bird is friendly, and shared this advice for if anyone encountered her:
“The best thing would be to rattle some food and coax her into a yard if you have one and call us so we can come get her. Getting her in a car is not going to be fun for anybody so I’m hoping close so we can get her no problem.”
Cassidy says animal control, the Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the humane society were all notified of the disappearance.
On September 20, the emu was reportedly found trapped between a fence and a concrete wall. She was safely returned to her owners, and the family says she is healthy and happy to be back home.
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