I was sitting in my wildlife management lab the other day and my lab partner and I were hard at work. It was in this moment that my life was forever changed. We had been discussing odd looking birds and the subject of Emus arose. My lab partner turned to me and said, "Have you ever heard of the Emu War?" Why, no. No I had not. I promptly did my research and was absolutely enthralled by what I discovered.
The Emu War, or The Great Emu War, took place in the early 1930's. It was a military operation undertaken for the sole purpose of eradicating a quickly rising and violent population of the large flightless birds. Some 20,000 emus migrated after their breeding season to an area of Western Australia that was populated by farmers that had moved in after WWI. Normally, the emus headed to the coast, but with the newly cleared land and addition water supplies, they decided to go ahead and settle in on the farm land. This did not bode well for the farmers. The emus consumed many of the crops and ruined a lot more. The farmers decided to take action against the birds by heading to the Minister of Defense. The minister agreed and so the war was planned.
Major Meredith and two soldiers armed with machine guns were deployed to deal with the birds. The war officially begun on November 2, 1932 after a rain delay that scattered the emus more. About 50 of the flightless heathens were sighted out of range. The locals attempted to ambush and herd them but the emus broke into small formations and ran, making them increasingly difficult to target. They collectively shot "a number" of the flightless avians.
On November 4, Major Meredith set an ambush near a local dam. A small armada of around 1000 emus were spotted heading towards their position. A small victory for the humans was well within reach. Or so they thought. They shot about 12 before the gun they were using jammed and no more emus were seen.
During the following week, the success in hunting the emus was minimal. Later, ornithologist Dominic Serventy was quoted, saying:
"The machine-gunners' dreams of point blank fire into serried masses of Emus were soon dissipated. The Emu command had evidently ordered guerrilla tactics, and its unwieldy army soon split up into innumerable small units that made use of the military equipment uneconomic. A crestfallen field force therefore withdrew from the combat area after about a month."
And so the first attempt at eradication of the emus ended with the deaths of around 200-500 emus. This was nowhere near making a dent in the army of 20,000 emus.
Score: EMUS-1 HUMANS-0
The farmers were unhappy with this turn of events as the emu onslaught on their crops continued. They pleaded again and the Minister of Defense approved another try at the large pests. So began the second attempt against the clearly underestimated emu army on November 13, 1932. This attempt saw a slightly larger degree of success, with 40 emus dead within the first few days. It was after this that, again, the emus proved too difficult. They were apparently impervious to the machine guns, sometimes taking multiple bullets and still continuing to run, easily escaping the human soldiers. Major Meredith was recalled on December 10 after it was realized that the soldiers were wasting about 10 bullets per emu. Meredith gave up in dismay after the soldiers only killed a small number of the numerous birds.
The emus had won.
For several years following, the farmers requested military assistance to no avail. The cost of killing the emus wasn't justified.
And so ends the story of the weirdest war i've ever heard of, all because of my wildlife management lab partner.
