Nicholas Olenik says he’d never experienced grief and depression until his brother and father died in the span of less than two years.
“It was just a little much. I never felt that low before, so I was looking for anything (to help),” Olenik, 41, who lives in the Kempsville neighborhood of Virginia Beach, Virginia, tells TODAY.com.
What finally helped was an emotional support animal in the form of an emu, the large flightless bird, prescribed to him by a local psychotherapist, he says. Olenik raised the bird from a tiny chick at his suburban home and felt his mental health improve.
“It brought me back to life,” he notes. “It gave me a reason to wake up in the morning.”
But when a neighbor complained he was keeping an emu, it set off a legal fight with city officials. The emu industry also cautions against the practice. The American Emu Association doesn’t support keeping emus as pets, warning suburban environments are inadequate for the birds. It also doesn’t consider them emotional support or therapy animals.
“Emu are horrible pets,” Kymara Lonergan, vice president of the American Emu Association, and an emu owner, handler and educator in Ulster Park, New York, tells TODAY.com. She’s concerned people see the LiMu Emu in TV ads and “get the idea all emu act like CGI-generated cartoon birds.”
'She lessened my anxiety'
But Olenik says emus are better than dogs.
After his brother died of a heart attack in 2019 and his father passed away of lung cancer in 2021, Olenik didn’t know how to cope. At the same time, his home maintenance business didn’t survive the pandemic, so he’d just sleep in late and watch TV as his wife went to work and his teenage daughter went to school. He says he was "down and depressed."
“Every doctor just wanted to give me drugs, and I didn’t want them,” Olenik recalls, noting he doesn’t even like taking Tylenol.
When a friend and his wife retired from the military and started a farm in Tennessee to help with their PTSD, they got an emu. That’s how Olenik first got the idea to get one, too. He says his psychotherapist supported the idea.
He bought an egg at an emu farm near his house and brought the chick home in January 2023 after it hatched.
Like the rest of the animals in his household, which include turtles, dogs and cats, the tiny female bird was named after a character in “Dragon Ball Z,” an anime TV series, and became known as Nimbus.
The emu lived in the house with the family, and used a doggy door to go outside as she pleased.
When she grew bigger, the family would open the screen door for her to let her out into the backyard. The houses in the area, including his, sit on about a quarter acre of land, Olenik says. The emu had a harness and a leash for when he took her on walks around the neighborhood.
With Nimbus, he found a purpose and a friend.
“She lessened my anxiety, she calmed me,” Olenik says. “She would notice me being down and just come snuggle on me. She brought me back to communicating more. … She pestered me, she got in my face. She wanted me to be active and follow her.”
Emus can cause 'horrendous injuries'
In February 2023, a neighbor complained the family was keeping an emu. Virginia Beach Animal Control then cited Olenik for violating city code, and a judge fined him $50. While Olenik considered Nimbus a companion animal, the city called the emu livestock.
The American Emu Association, a nonprofit that represents the emu industry, says the birds should be raised for agricultural purposes — such as meat, leather, oil, feathers and eggs — in a proper, safe environment.
They can weigh up to 100 pounds, grow to almost 6 feet tall and sprint more than 30 miles per hour, so they need an adequate amount of fenced space to walk, run and forage, it notes.
People don’t need a license to buy an emu, but it’s “completely unhealthy” for the bird to be kept alone with only human companionship, the association says. Emus are not safe pets for children, it warns.
“They have razor sharp claws that could easily slice an artery or cause horrendous injuries if they are not properly handled. I would never allow a child or an inexperienced person near my emu,” Lonergan says.
“They are not an animal that people with no livestock handling experience can simply own.”
There’s currently a huge demand for white and blond emus driven by social media, Lonergan notes. A pet emu named Emmanuel became a TikTok sensation in 2022.
She worries emus kept as pets by inexperienced owners will have to suffer through bizarre feeds, wearing diapers, having improper footing in a house, being placed in chlorinated deep family swimming pools and taunting by children.
Judge rules on 'highly unusual' case
Olenik appealed his case to a higher court. He testified how Nimbus is a companion animal who helps his mental health; explained he wasn’t keeping the emu for food or fiber; and presented a letter from his therapist who wrote Olenik should continue his therapy with an emotional support animal “unencumbered.”
The judge ruled in his favor. “While it is highly unusual that someone would keep an emu as a pet — or as a companion animal — while also residing in the heart of suburbia, Defendant has shown that it is not impossible,” Virginia Beach Circuit Court Judge Kevin Duffan wrote in his decision on July 27, 2023.
He found Olenik not guilty of violating city code and permanently dismissed the case.
Still, Nimbus won’t be coming back to the household. Before the judge’s decision, Olenik says the city required him to remove the emu from his home, so he sent her to his friend’s ranch in Tennessee in June. There, she met Oreo, a male emu, and the two have become bonded. Olenik didn't want to separate the pair and decided to let her stay. He plans to get another emu chick this winter.
The whole experience inspired him to run for office. He’s running as an independent in the upcoming election for Virginia House of Delegates 96th District.
“I asked every single politician in my area for help with my emu, and they laughed at me,” Olenik says, noting he has a simple message for voters.
“You like how hard I fought for an emu? Wait 'til I fight for you, my constituent, even harder. I’m tired of a tyrannical government.”
