OPPOSE EMU 'FARMING'. Those who see the emu as just another commodity, just another slab of meat 'less cholesterol', luggage, trinkets, cash cows and cash machines, defile the living beauty of these birds.

Emus are gentle, friendly birds with a strong family life. The father plays an active role in nest-building and in the 8 week incubation and rearing of the chicks.

Emus belong to the oldest living family of birds on earth, the ratites or flightless fowl.
They are nomads, designed by 90 million years of evolution to roam over vast tracks of land. With their long, powerful legs and camel-like feet adapted for speed, they can run up to 40 miles an hour, covering 9 feet in a single stride.
Their long necks and excellent periscopic vision enable them to survey the land for miles in all directions at once.

If they appear awkward in captivity, it is because these fleet birds are meant for wide open spaces, where their grace and intelligence can be exercised.

Emus grow to be 5 feet tall, weigh up to 140 pounds and live for 25 to 30 years. They range widely into Australia's interior thriving on shoots, seeds, fruits and insects. When food is abundant they store a thick layer of fat beneath the skin as a reserve for hard times.

Both parents help the chicks to hatch by pecking at the shell after 6 weeks of incubation. The family stays together for 10 months or more as the young birds learn to fend for themselves. The normally peaceful emu will kick ferociously with their legs and bite with their beaks to protect eggs and young from enemies.

 

DEGRADING THESE MAGNIFICENT BIRDS TO MEAT AND MERCHANDISE:

• TRANSPORT-Subjecting emus with their long thin necks and legs, and large fragile eyes, to transport is cruel and inhumane.
• FEATHER REMOVAL-Pulling feathers from the body of a living bird is cruel and painful. A feather is firmly held in a follicle, the wall of which is richly supplied with sensory fibres and nerves. Even clipping the feathers above the nerve endings pulls on the sensitive skin and muscle tissue to which the feathers are attached. Removing a feather from a bird requires a hard steady pull. Feather removal is a barbaric act.
  It takes about five minutes for a blindfolded bird to be plucked. The bird is released into a holding pen, joining a growing number of others, all plucked, covered in bumps where the feathers were ripped out, streaming blood and waiting...
• SLAUGHTER-Slaughter bound birds and mammals are typically starved for hours and even days before they are killed. Hauled in all kinds of weather, they are forced to endure truck vibrations, heat, stress, cold, damp, thirst and terror. They are then shot with a captive bolt, like cattle or, like poultry, they are electrically shocked (not stunned) and then hung upside down to have their throats cut, being kept alive when their blood drains. They are slaughtered at 12-15 months of age

Eight Mile Creek in 'trendy' So Ho, New York City, New York, USA.
( EMU and Kangaroo ) on the menu

Proprietor Frank Ford: Frank admits he is not a chef, not a foodie, has no real palate for wine...he has never even been a waiter; he is 'ordinary' FRANK FORD, Jack-of-All-Trades from Wyalla, South Australia 5600. But he epitomizes an extraordinary ignorance about our native animals and their welfare, their most basic psychological and behavioural needs and requirements. He cares not about the cruelty and brutality in the killing. But he should care about the diseases prevalent in Game Meat to all who consume the undercooked flesh...there is no ante mortem inspection to check for disease before they are killed, bacteria, viruses, residues of Fenitrothion after spraying for Locusts, choroid blindness disease...transporting long distances in heat, filthy chillers, fly infested meat going down to Adelaide, S.A.

Write to the Department of Health, New York City, NY or to New York Senator, Hillary Clinton USA