Nothing to see here, just an emu loose in your neighborhood

It wasn’t just any ordinary Tuesday morning in a neighborhood in Passaic County. Shortly before 10 a.m. near the Totowa-Paterson border an emu was running loose and authorities were getting a ton of calls on the nearly four foot tall gangly looking bird. Chief animal control officer John DeCando told NJ.com, “It was running down the street and people didn’t know what the hell it was.”

These are some 911 calls I think we all need to hear.

When animal control officers spotted the emu shortly before 10am they moved in with a net. Should we cue the old Benny Hill theme music here? They managed to humanely capture the emu and took it to a a local shelter.

They still don’t know where it came from. An emu is not common in North Jersey but DeCando said it may have come from a farm.

Some emu fun facts:

Emus are the second biggest birds on the planet. The biggest? Ostriches. (Aren’t emus sort of the red-headed stepsister to ostriches?)

They can run as fast as 31mph.

They have two sets of eyelids, one just to keep dust out.

They can live to be 20 years old.

They can grow to be 6 feet tall.

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski. Any opinions expressed are Jeff Deminski's own.