Someone Shot Mary The Emu, And This Animal Rescue Wants Justice [View all]

[onehandle]

[IMG][/IMG]

Mary the emu did not like hanging out with the other emus at Rikki's Refuge, a Virginia animal sanctuary about 90 miles southwest of Washington, D.C. At the sanctuary, Mary quickly expressed her preference for living apart from members of her own species, and soon found herself shacking up with a similarly disposed companion: a goat who disliked goats.

"Mary was very happy with her shy goat," the sanctuary's founder and director, Kerry Hilliard, told The Huffington Post by email. "Over the years a young emu pair arrived who didn't like living with the emu herd, and they moved in and befriended Mary too. Then a pot belly pig joined us who didn't like living with pigs. And so the goat, the pig and the three emus have lived happily together."

That changed one morning in early January, when a staff member heading to feed breakfast to Mary, Beau the pig, and their goat and emu friends was called off to help at the sanctuary's "Horsey Haven" pasture.

"It was no more than a 15 minute diversion and he was back to look in on Mary and her roommates," said Hilliard. When the staff member returned, he found Mary "collapsed, barely breathing, surrounded by pools of blood. Our medical team ran at full speed with frigid air burning their lungs on this coldest of mornings. But it was too late. Mary was dead within minutes. She had a fractured leg and it sure looked like she’d been shot."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/07/rikkis-refuge-mary-emu_n_4747614.html

If you have a gun, you gotta do something with it. Right, gun nuts?