Now we have emus to worry about. One of the big birds has been ruffling feathers at the Rowan County Animal Shelter, where it was taken after a brief sparring match with a car. (We’re not sure who won the bout, but the driver didn’t wait around for a rematch.)

Then other tales of emu mischief emerged: Emus wandering aimlessly in the road. Emus attacking men and shredding their pants. Emus crashing through the windshields of minivans. (No, wait, that was one of our native terrorist deer).

The problem is that emus are big (up to 150 pounds or so), rambunctious and have sharp toenails. Until the government gets control of this threat to our security, we recommend that residents be especially vigilant.

We may need to organize neighborhood emu watches, or have sirens blare community-wide emu alerts. Perhaps an emu hotline is required.