THE GREAT EMU WAR

                One of the most unusual wars in history occurred in Australia in 1932.  And the bad guys won.  If you can call birds bad guys, that is.  When Australian soldiers returned from the Great War, they were rewarded with farm land.  Surprise, the government screwed them.  The free land was marginal farm land in western Australia.  The promised subsidies never occurred.  The veterans struggled to make ends meet and that was before the Great Depression hit.  When it did, wheat prices plunged.  But all Australian farmers were hurt by that.  What was unique for these western Aussies was they had to also deal with an invasion.  The invaders were 20,000 emus.  The large flightless bird had been a protected species until 1922.  After that, they were considered “vermin”.  The ostrich-cousins found the area good habitat.  Not only did they enjoy the wheat, they destroyed fences which allowed rabbits to join in the feast.  The farmers petitioned the government for help in killing them.  The Ministry of Defence saw the opportunity to show the farmers the government cared, for a change.

                If the farmers would pay for the ammunition, the military would ride to the rescue.  A Maj. Meredith was sent in command of an army consisting of two soldiers and two Lewis machine guns.  They brought 10,000 rounds of ammo.  The hunters looked forward to the slaughter.  The Army envisioned thousands of emu feathers for making hats for light horsemen.  The war began on November 2, 1932.  The emu-slaughterers at first could not locate their prey, so farmers herded the emu into the kill zone.  The birds proved hard to hit and they would break up into smaller groups and run away.  Round two was an ambush, but this time one of the machine guns jammed early and only a few crop-eaters were killed.  Putting a machine gun in a truck was ineffective because the emus were faster and the bumpy ride made the machine gun inaccurate. By this time the press got hold of the story.  The farcical performance by the soldiers was ascribed to emu leadership.  Each herd had a large black emu that would stand watch over his “mob” (plural for emus) and then warn his followers to run when the machine gunners would appear.  Over six days, 2,500 bullets had been fired to kill 200-500 birds.  On November 8, Maj. Meredith cried uncle and left.  He excused his failure to the emus being akin to the Zulus!  It was not a shame to lose to such worthy adversaries.

                Not giving up, the Army renewed the offensive on Nov. 13.  In the next three weeks, the killings improved with eventually 100 emus per week being destroyed.  A total of 986 kills were claimed from about 10,000 bullets.  That was about 10 bullets per dead bird.  That might sound like a lost of wastage, but it was a better percent than in Vietnam, for instance.  The Army gave up for good and refused subsequent requests when the emu problem would rear its ugly head again.  Instead, the government offered a bounty for every emu head.  In 1934, 57,000 bounties were paid.  But the real solution was better fencing.  Finally, the farmers had the last laugh.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-great-emu-war-australia

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/the-great-emu-war-in-which-some-large-flightless-birds-unwittingly-foiled-the-australian-army/