Emu on the Run

The emu left the petting zoo at eleven on Saturday morning, having apparently reviewed the fencing and found management’s position unpersuasive.

By eleven-ten, it was touring Rockland County at speed.

Children cheered. Parents filmed. One elderly man offered directions, which the emu ignored with the confidence of a native New Yorker.

Officer Anton arrived as the bird crossed a lawn, threaded between two patrol cars, and momentarily paused beside a mailbox as if awaiting correspondence, before dashing off again.

“Animal control’s coming,” dispatch said.

“They better be quick,” Anton replied.

Overhead, the department’s Drone as First Responder tracked the feathered fugitive through Ramapo. Its camera supplied excellent footage of officers discovering that emus could accelerate like frightened wildebeests.

Animal Control Officer Marisol Vega approached with a restraint pole, looking entirely unsurprised. After years in animal control, a loose emu barely qualified as an unusual day.

“Don’t corner it too sharply,” she warned.

The emu crossed the road. Sergeant Anton stepped left. Another officer stepped right. The drone hovered above, contributing surveillance and no physical effort whatsoever.

Faced with this unreasonable bureaucracy, the emu slowed. Vega secured it, and everyone exhaled except the bystanders, who continued recording vertically.

The fugitive was escorted home without injury or citation, pausing at the gate to look back over the town of Ramapo. Whether the emu was reflecting on its adventure or already considering another escape was impossible to say.

The emu, professionally, declined comment.