(WWJ) – A pair of emus are apparently on the loose in Mid-Michigan after a woman and her dog were chased along a trail on Monday.
Kate Buning and her pug were walking on the Pere Marquette Rail Trail, northwest of Midland, around 9:30 a.m. Monday when the two giant birds came out of the woods, according to a report from MLive.
She snapped a photo of the emus before they began approaching her, causing her dog to “freak out.” As the birds became more aggressive, she began to run.
"It was terrified," Buning told WWJ's Brook Allen. "I was literally thinking this is how I'm gonna die... Really? Killed by two big birds? And they're big. They're as tall as I am!"
As she ran for her life, Buning said the "aggressive" emus chased her for about half-a-mile.
"I'm not gonna outrun them; they're really fast," she said. "They go like 35 miles an hour, right? There's no outrunning them. I knew that, just based on how fast they came at me the first time, when they were running at me."
Buning said she threw sticks and stones at the birds to try and stop them, but it didn’t do much to deter them.
The birds stopped chasing her once she reached a road. She then called 911.
An officer from Midland County Animal Control responded to the scene to search for the birds, but they did not find them, the report said.
Authorities are not sure where the birds came from. Buning believes they may have escaped from a nearby farm.
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