It's an EMU, not an ostrich...DONT HIT IT!

GREENFIELD --'We were driving home on Interstate 91 from Brattleboro Wednesday afternoon around 3 p.m., and were just coming into Greenfield when my girlfriend starts shouting 'Look, look! There are ostriches running across the highway!' recalls Robert Berube, a home improvement contractor from Colrain.

He said his girlfriend, Donna Pedigo, who's a nursing student from Greenfield, insisted that they stop and try to save the birds -- which turned out to be emus -- before they were hit by a car and injured.
'I used a 50-foot contractor's extension cord to lasso the first one. I made a loop in it and tossed it over the bird's head,' he said.

'As I was getting the first one, Donna was trying to chase down the second one, but it ran away so fast she abandoned the pursuit,' Berube said. [pussy]

The couple followed the second bird up a slope to a fence that runs along the highway and then herded it back down into a swampy area, where the battle continued.
'I tried to lasso it again, but the loop was too big and he ran right through it, so I had to try and tackle him. 'That bird kicked my ass!' Berube recalled ruefully.

The bird kicked him in the stomach several times and also clawed at his arm before he and Pedigo could get the extension cord around its neck. 'Another guy stopped to help us and got his leg clawed. I tried to warn him, but it was too late,' he said.

The emus had been at large since Sunday, when their owner, Arthur Dahowski, of 716 Mohawk Trail, inadvertently left their pen open as he rushed off to deal with a family medical emergency.

According to Dahowski, it was fortuitous that Pedigo and Berube found the birds -- state officials had said that they might have had to shoot the emus if they had interfered with traffic on the highway. There had been several sightings over the past few days, and officers had seen them running along local roads.
'They saved those animals,' he said.