Ethel the emu ‘escapes again just days after being caught’
Ethel the emu is apparently on the run again just a few days after she was caught and returned home.
The bird went missing for six days in Doncaster before being found on Tuesday.
But it seems she may have got loose again after Phil Johnson, 49, claimed to have filmed her near the A1 in South Yorkshire.
He told Yorkshire Live: “My wife was walking down with her mum when they saw this emu and it went right up to them.
“When I saw it, it was in bad condition with missing tail feathers.
"You're not going to find two emu's in Doncaster, are you?”
Read more: Third teenager charged with murder of ‘extremely likeable lad’
On Tuesday a friend of Ethel's owner Kerry Dobson posted on Facebook the city-wide search for the six-foot-tall bird who had eluded police and RSPCA officers was over.
Victoria Elizabeth Robinson-Hewitt said the bird - which can run at speeds of up to 30mph - had been captured near a primary school on Monday night.
She said the timid emu had been accidentally let out of her enclosure by builders at Dobson's home in Doncaster before getting lost in woodland.
The bird was later spotted at several locations in Doncaster with Facebook group “Our Sprotbrough” posting dozens of pictures of the wandering emu in a bid to trace her.
Read more: Man, 21, held on suspicion of murder after pensioner is found dead in beauty spot
She'd made her way from the Newlands Park through to the Trans Pennine Trail near Cosworth before she headed 10 miles east to Dunscroft.
Robinson-Hewitt claims the emu was found near Richmond Hill Primary School in Doncaster.
RSPCA senior scientific officer for exotics Nicola White recommends people do not keep emus as pets even though they can be owned without a licence.
She said: “They need large outdoor paddocks with a shelter and high fencing to keep them safe - not conditions you can provide in your average home.”
Read more: A British holidaymaker has plunged to his death from an Ibiza clifftop
