Pay no attention to the emu behind the curtain, or the one in between lanes 3 and 4

I think it's funny when odd animals show up in places that they would ordinarily not be, like in traffic.

Footloose emu struck on I-79

A footloose emu who was struck by a vehicle while it tried to cross the busy northbound lanes of Interstate 79 Friday morning was rescued by State Police and Marion County animal control officers.

Two vehicles were involved in a rear-end collision shortly before 9 a.m. as commuters slowed to look at the more than 4-foot-tall bird, authorities said.

"The State Police troopers had it up against a guardrail when we arrived," said Ben Smith, a dog warden for the Marion County Animal Control patrol.

Using a tie-down rope and a raincoat, Trooper E. Hudson of the Morgantown State Police detachment calmed the injured bird, said Smith and Deputy First Class Todd Cole of the Marion County Sheriff's Department.

The bird was apparently the victim of a hit-and-run driver, Smith said. He and Deputy Cole praised Trooper Hudson for getting the bird under control.

"He's an emu wrangler," Deputy Cole said of the resourceful trooper.

For those of you concerned about said emu: "'It had a flesh wound on one of its legs. It didn't have much fight in it, but you could tell it was shook up,' Smith said." It may be evil of me that I find this funny. Oh well. But you know what this will do? It will encourage people to take those hilarious deer-crossing sign jokes (How do the deer know to cross at the sign? Hardy har har) and extend them to emus. Emu, emu, emu. The word has lost all meaning now.

Oh, and the guy who wrote the article is Bill Byrd - probably no relation to the fossilized Senator Byrd. It's more likely that someone tried to change his name to Robert C. Byrd (because we love to name stuff Robert C. Byrd) and he resisted, finally settling on last name only.