Authorities seek owner of wandering emu

SARASOTA, Fla., Oct. 25 (UPI) -- Animal authorities in Florida said they were trying to find the owner of an emu found wandering in a Sarasota neighborhood.

Sarasota County Animal Services said the emu was captured while wandering loose in the Deer Hollow neighborhood of Sarasota Wednesday, and no one had come forward to claim the animal as of Thursday, WWSB-TV, Sarasota, reported Friday.

"It's kind of hard to dump something big like that, but it could be that someone got it and it got to be too much, and they just let it go," said Tami Treadway, supervisor of Animal Services.

Treadway said workers did some research on the Australian animals and determined they should feed it apples and citrus.

"There's a lot of resources on Google," Treadway said. "And we called a couple of rescue groups too to ask what we'd feed it in the interim."

Treadway said her office has received a lot of calls from around the country from people seeking to adopt the flightless bird, but Animals Services will turn the emu over to a rescue service if the owner is not found.