Earring eaten by Wiltshire emu returned after five days

A woman whose earring was pulled from her ear and swallowed by an emu, has had it returned five days later.

Two-year-old emu, Cha Cha, snuck up on Janinka Diverio at the Malmesbury Animal Sanctuary and managed to snatch the silver earring from her earlobe.

Ms Diverio, said: "I turned round and tried to grab it but I was too late - it was nowhere to be seen."

After wading through a "wheelbarrow of poo" looking for the lost earring she finally found it days later in the mud.

Ms Diverio, project co-director at the sanctuary, said emus are "just so curious" and "love anything shiny".

"Ordinarily, in the field we have an embargo on earrings and anything dangly because [emus] will just grab them," she said,

"But on this one occasion, I just popped into the field very quick to check on one of the other animals and I went down in my ordinary clothes."

It was on this "one occasion" the mischievous Cha Cha managed to take Ms Diverio by surprise.

"They're so quiet, they just literally creep up behind you and you can't hear them," she said.

"The first thing I knew was this pulling on my ear and I touched my [ear] lobe and sure enough she had stolen my earring."

Told her dangly earring would "probably come out in its poo in the next few hours", all the sanctuary's volunteers were asked to put any emu poo aside.

"A couple of days later I went down and put some rubber gloves on and went through a wheelbarrow of poo but didn't find it," she said.

"I'd kind of given up on it but then a couple of days later, I saw something a bit shiny and low and behold it was my earring embedded in the ground."

Covered in "mud and quite dirty" and "bent up" after its journey, the jewellery has now been washed and sent for repair.

"They were a special gift so that's why I went to so much trouble to try and get it back," said Ms Diverio.

"I am absolutely overjoyed."

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