Emu spotted -- but still missing in Scott County

SIKESTON -- An emu reported missing in Scott County has been spotted in various cornfields during the harvest season but remains on the loose.

About 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sikeston Department of Public Safety received a report of livestock located near the Sikeston Power Plant on West Wakefield, according to DPS incident reports.

"A local farmer was shelling corn and saw it in a cornfield on BB and Salcedo in Sikeston," said Darla Lofton of Sikeston whose husband owns the bird.

Lofton said the emu is 6 feet tall and has gray and tan feathers.

"It blends in with the corn fields and is going from cornfield to cornfield," she said.

Emus are large, flightless, fast-running Australian birds resembling the ostrich, with shaggy gray or brown plumage, bare blue skin on the head and neck and three-toed feet.

Lofton said her husband has about 20 of the birds on property near Vanduser.

"He wants to find it and get it back out there," she said of her husband.

Lofton said about a month ago, the emu got loose after it was separated from the other emus because it was wounded.

"We thought it was already dead," Lofton said of the bird after it got loose.

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