Whoa — Big Bird!

Really, really big bird.

A five-foot tall emu weighing between 100 and 150 pounds is raising a ruckus at the Rowan County Animal Shelter, where he’s been living in a dog kennel since Stacey Keller found him on Dunn’s Mountain Road about 6 p.m., Monday, a hit-and-run victim.

Keller said the woman whose car hit the bird stopped but then took off again when nobody showed up at the scene right away. At the time, the emu was calm and quiet because it had been hit, Keller said.

He called his father, Joe Goodman, who lives nearby on Agner Drive and said, “Daddy, bring your truck.” Keller, who has had some experience handling emus because his aunt and uncle raise them, got the bird onto the bed of the pickup, stroking it a bit, then unloaded it into a dog run in his parents’ back yard.

By the time Animal Control officers arrived about 10 p.m., the emu was apparently feeling better because they had a hard time getting him into their vehicle. Then, according to Animal Control Officer Fran Hancock, they had “a heck of a time getting him out of the truck into a kennel.”

She said they don’t know who owns the bird and suspect no one will claim it. When emus get loose and cause damage, their owners typically don’t come for them, Hancock said.

The birds have cost as much as $2,000, but now that people have established herds, Keller estimates the prices have dropped into the $100 range.

Hancock said she doesn’t know if the emu at the shelter is the same one that has been on the loose in the area, nor can she verify all the stories that have been circulating — about an emu evading a group of men and shredding the trousers of one of them, about a woman and an emu running in a field with no clear evidence of who was chasing whom, about an emu attacking an automobile and causing $1,000 damage.

But any of those stories could be true, Hancock said, because the behavior people are describing is typical emu.

“They are extremely dangerous to catch,” he said. “They have sharp toe nails and kick like an ostrich. That’s their defense. They can do some very bad damage.”

If all the emu reports are true and if it’s all the same bird, Hancock said he would have had to travel all the way across Goodman Lake Bridge. “It’s do-able,” she said, because emus can run fast.

Another emu had been loose, running in and out of traffic on Long Ferry Road, Hancock said. The owner tried to tranquilize it, but with little success because the adrenaline the bird’s running generates overcomes the tranquilizer. When he couldn’t catch the animal, the owner finally had to shoot it.

The injured emu at the shelter was not tranquilized because Keller was able to catch it. For now, the emu will remain at the shelter in case his owner comes to claim him. If that doesn’t happen in a few days, Hancock said they will give the emu to someone who raises them and can keep them confined.