Lake Champlain Emu?

Posted by: Loren Coleman on February 19th, 2012

Forget about Champ and the Lake Champlain Monsters. There’s an escaped emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae) that’s been getting all of the anomalous sightings up near the lake of late.

If you want an emu of your own, here’s your chance.

An elusive runaway emu in Vermont has laughing residents in communities on Lake Champlain watching the roads and yards as they drive and walk about.

The 150-pound flightless bird resembles a small ostrich or rhea. Vermont’s escapee has been spotted wandering around in Grand Isle and South Hero since it escaped from a local farm five weeks ago.

It was spotted again February 17th, outside the South Hero elementary school, where it walked by a window of the principal’s office. School worker Steve Berard tried to lasso it with an extension cord, but it broke free.

The emu’s owner told WCAX-TV he bought three emus for his grandchildren but they don’t make great pets.

He’s taken out an ad in a local newspaper saying, “Free emu if you can capture it.”

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.


10 Responses to “Lake Champlain Emu?”

  1. Champ Voucher responds:

    I have a blurry video of this creature. $4000 if anyone wants to see it.

  2. Hapa responds:

    “An elusive runaway Emu in Vermont has laughing residents in communities on Lake Champlain watching the roads and yards as they drive and walk about.”

    Walk-about. Good one LOL

    I wouldn’t be surprised if it is caught and killed by a predator, such as Black Bear, or perhaps, if it exists, Champ…?

    Come to think of it, when viewed from a distance in the water (Emu’s swim?), it might look a little like a Nessie-Plesiosaur-like monster. Interesting.

  3. David-Australia responds:

    “The emu’s owner told WCAX-TV he bought three emus for his grandchildren but they don’t make great pets.”

    Though my personal experience with emus on ‘home turf’ has been limited, I would say from what I’ve heard that the above is definitely an understatement . . .

  4. davidk responds:

    Hapa said:

    “I wouldn’t be surprised if it is caught and killed by a predator, such as Black Bear”

    I wouldn’t be surprised if it caught the black bear. 😉

    See:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZLx4Os8TBs

  5. Desertdweller responds:

    These critters are mean! They do not mix with grandkids!

    I saw my first emu quite unexpectedly while running a train in Mississippi. There, in a cut-over cornfield, stood a bird taller than myself!

    Found out later that there had been a fad in the area for raising emus, apparently to sell their meat and feathers. The expected demand did not turn out, and the birds either escaped, or, in some cases, were purposely released into the wild. They became feral.

    One of my friends owns a couple of farms in Mississippi. On one of the farms, a pair of emus decided to set up housekeeping.

    They are a large animal with a very small brain. A legacy of their dinosaur ancestors.

    As stupid as they may be, they have a very well-developed “fight or flight” response. They are very good at both. Not only can they outrun most predators, they come equipped with a large claw on each leg that is capable of killing a person if the emu is cornered. They will aggressively defend themselves, each other, their nests, and their young.

    I would no more trust children around these things than I would around bison.

    They might make challenging game animals, on the order of wild boar.

  6. AreWeThereYeti responds:

    See, sometimes it IS just an “escaped pet!”

  7. David-Australia responds:

    God forbid that emus somehow breed with Sasquatch.

  8. Hapa responds:

    davidk:

    Hilarious vid lol.

    I did some checking: Emus can run about 30-31 Mph.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu

    Black Bears do about 25-30 mph
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Bear

    Emu would edge it out in speed, but bears are ambush predators; it might, just might be able to catch it. However Emus are indeed formidable, and I’m thinking now that an Emu would look so strange to a Blackbear that the latter might give it a wide berth, or even run from it.

    A pack of feral dogs, however, could give it trouble (average dog should run faster than a bear) in terms of speed and numbers. However, I doubt a single dog could really threaten an Emu, considering those nasty kicks and a third weapon: a big thumping beak. I saw a video once of a tiger and a dog playing with an emu: both tried to get close, but the Emu’s kicks kept them away (the kicks never landed: the fear of those claws were more tan enough to make the predators think twice)

    However, we haven’t brought up the eastern Cougar: if it exists, it could prove a danger to an emu: when a pure predator sees something new, they think two things: what is it, and can I eat it. Though a face to face encounter would most likely end in an Emu triumph, one pounce from behind could end it quick. Its all a question of whether the Cougar would be messed up in its strike by so odd and unusual prey, something it never encounters in America’s wild.

  9. paul_r responds:

    I hope the owner recovers the Emu before the coyotes do. Wouldn’t be concerned about bears atall if I was that emu.

  10. ModernShanahan responds:

    Lake Champ creature should of popped out and ate the Emu.

Sorry. Comments have been closed.

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