In 1932, the Emu War was declared in Australia. Farmers and soldiers
alike battled it out with one of Australia’s native flightless birds. A few months later,
the emus were declared the victors. Here's the messed up history of Australia's Emu War.
During World War I, Australian state governments introduced soldier settlement schemes to provide
returning veterans with a source of income. Approximately 9 million hectares of land were
given to returning veterans, creating around 23,000 farms across Australia. This was all
part of The Returned Soldiers Settlement Act which was introduced in New South Wales in 1916.
The act stated that soldiers who had been honorably discharged could "apply for Crown Lands
if they had served overseas." Various districts specialized in particular industries. In Tasmania,
soldiers worked as dairy farmers. In Queensland, they farmed cane. And in South Australia and New
South Wales, fruit industries were established. By definition, "Crown Lands" are lands that
were taken from Aboriginal people during the colonization of Australia. Over the course of the
war, many Aboriginal men served in the Australian Imperial Force. When they returned to Australia,
many of their applications for soldier settlement allocations were denied for no apparent reason
other than their Indigenous heritage. There were a handful of successful applications. But those who
were successful were all "fair-skinned enough to be considered 'substantially European.'"
The land that the soldiers were given often wasn't suitable for farming. While soldiers
could get advances of money for equipment and seeds, most learned the hard way that they weren’t
cut out to be farmers. Ultimately the land they received did not sustain them and their families.
The "Wheatbelt" was established in southwestern Australia. Roughly 5,000 soldiers settled in the
area, but by the 1920s, almost one third had given up. Farmers were forced to diversify
their crops in order to sustain themselves. As the 1929 Great Depression led all commodity
prices to drop worldwide, the newly elected Prime Minister, James Scullin, proposed a plan to aid
Australian farmers. Scullin told Australian farmers that if they produced more wheat,
he'd ensure the passage of the Wheat Marketing Bill. This was in order to guarantee farmers a
minimum price for their following year’s crop. Unfortunately, the proposed price guarantee
disappeared as a direct result of political wrangling. By September 1931, the government had
abandoned its plan to compensate farmers for their losses. And as a result, farmers were only able to
sell their wheat for less than half of what they'd been expecting. Many called it one of the greatest
disasters in Australian economic history. It took four tries to pass a relief bill.
By the time it finally passed in 1931, the damage had already been done. Prime Minister
Scullin's Labor Party lost the elections that year. When Joseph Lyons became prime minister,
he canceled the relief bill. After suffering two disastrous years in 1930 and 1931,
wheat farmers decided to withhold their wheat until they were able to get a fair price for it.
Around the same time the Australian government was giving plots of land to veterans,
Western Australia changed the status of emus from "endangered" to "vermin." This was largely because
the land given to farmers was being invaded by emus searching for water. Although emus typically
migrate from the northeast to the southwest in the spring, they are unpredictable in the speed
and distance they travel. The number of birds traveling in a group also varies a great deal.
When the Australian government declared emus to be "vermin" in 1922, they also instituted
a bounty for them, paying for emu beaks. The emus were a huge problem for the farmers since
they ate the crops. But they also made large holes in the fences surrounding the farms.
The fences were essential for protecting the farmers' crops from rabbits, an invasive species
that had been brought by English settlers so they could have familiar hunting targets.
Emus, meanwhile, are indigenous to Australia. A flightless bird that can stand over 6 feet tall,
they're opportunistic grazers and will eat anything from grass to nuts. So as they
passed the wheat fields on their migratory path, who could blame them for enjoying the buffet?
In 1932, as farmers were withholding their wheat, they were also forced to contend with
a massive group of emus. The emus came along their migratory path in the fall, and as roughly
20,000 emus descended into the Campion District, farmers tried to fight against them themselves.
By late 1932, the 20,000 birds were wreaking havoc on the wheat farms of the veterans.
Even these men, trained soldiers, who killed thousands of emus, could not control them.
At one point, some boys reportedly killed as many as 27 emus in a single day. They accomplished this
feat by riding around on bicycles and swatting the birds in the head with sticks. A similar endeavor
was attempted with a truck, but the truck's engine was too loud and scared the birds away.
The farmers panicked because not only did they need the harvest to make money, but they also
needed it as leverage against the government. After a while, the emus started catching on
to what was going on. So despite continuing to eat the farmers' crops, they also became wary
of humans and wouldn't allow them to get close. Because the farmers didn't trust the Ministry
of Agriculture, they instead turned to the minister of defense for help.
Representatives for the soldier-turned-farmers reached out to Sir George Pearce, the minister
of defense. One account states that a letter was written to Sir Pearce,
while other accounts claim that the farmers sent a group to see Sir Pearce personally. Either way,
they reached out to Sir Pearce specifically to request machine guns to combat the emus.
Sir Pearce was intrigued by the plan and discussed it with the commandant of the
Fifth Military District, A.M. Martyn. Together, they decided that it could
be a useful training exercise for their soldiers. Sir Pearce also decided to send
a Fox Movietone cinematographer along. He recognized an opportunity when he saw it.
He wanted to show the rest of the country how hard the government was working to better the lives of
all Australians during the Great Depression. The local Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty was reportedly consulted as well. They approved the idea as long
as their inspectors could verify that the animals were treated humanely. Additionally,
Colonel Hoad of the Australian Light Horse found out about the project. He insisted on making an
order for 1,000 feathered emu skins in order to use their plumage for his horsemen's hats.
Sir Pearce decided that machine guns would be provided as long as they were
operated by professional soldiers who knew how to use them. On top of that,
the farmers would have to provide all of the ammunition, food, and lodging for the soldiers.
The operation was initially planned for early October 1932.
Two machine gunners, Sergeant S. McMurray and Gunner J. O'Halloran,
were assigned to the mission. They were each given two Lewis light machine guns.
Along with Major G.P.W. Meredith and the Fox Movietone cameraman, they headed to the
Campion district. The Farmer's Agricultural Bank also agreed to front the government for
the ammunition. It would be repaid out of the farmers' future profits. So the men brought
10,000 rounds of ammo with the advance. The group arrived ready to decimate the emus,
but the rain arrived just as they did. As a result, the emus scattered for a month. Per
their agreement, the farmers housed the men in the town of Perth. When the rain finally ceased
and the emus returned, the soldiers headed once again to the Campion district. On their way, they
saw a group of 40 to 50 emus, and Major Meredith decided that it was time to start the culling.
The first shots were fired on November 2, 1932.
Several soldiers sought to gun down a group of emus. The soldiers also rallied around
50 local farmers to help herd the birds with their trucks toward the machine gun. However,
emus don’t stampede in a straight line. Instead, they scatter in all directions when startled. When
the cars roared toward the emus, the birds split into small groups and bolted in every direction.
Plus, emus can run up to 40 mph, which made it even more difficult to focus on a target.
The emus stayed beyond the range of the machine guns, coming no closer than 1,000 yards. And
although Sergeant McMurray fired at the emus, all of the shots missed. The soldiers asked the
locals to try herding the birds once more. The birds managed to remain out of range, but this
time Sergeant McMurray was able to gun down six of the emus. The first blood of the Emu War was shed.
The next day, the soldiers managed to kill nine emus, but not before the birds devastated a farm.
Two days later, the soldiers ambushed a group of 1,000 emus. Since they had waited quietly
for the emus to approach them, the birds were hit at point-blank range. Between 10 and 12
emus fell. However, the machine gun jammed, and the emus scattered. The emus quickly figured out
that the machine guns had a limited range, so a majority of the birds escaped confrontations.
One plan involved putting a machine gun on the back of a truck. But not a single emu
was killed. Not even a single bullet was fired because the gunner had problems hanging on.
The only casualty was a stretch of fence that was destroyed when the truck crashed into it.
By November 8th, out of the 10,000 rounds of ammunition brought for the mission,
2,500 had been fired. But there were only 200 dead birds to show for it. In an ironic twist, when the
emus ran to avoid the soldiers, even more farmland was destroyed by their powerful stampeding legs.
Sir Pearce hadn't informed his superiors of the Emu War. So when Prime Minister Lyons was
asked about it, he didn't know what to say. The operation turned into an embarrassment,
and the soldiers were ordered to withdraw from the Campion district,
effectively calling a cease-fire. Major Meredith, Sergeant McMurray,
and Gunner O'Halloran complied with their orders. But the farmers pleaded for their return.
Sir Pearce was able to finagle a bureaucratic loophole that allowed the Western Australian
state government to borrow the machine guns and the soldiers. So Major Meredith mounted
a second campaign on November 13th, although that day, they only managed to kill 40 emus.
A month later, reports claimed that 100 emus were being killed each week. However, Meredith
calculated that they were using 10 bullets for every emu they killed. As a result, on December
10th, the soldiers were ordered to withdraw once more, bringing the Emu War to a close.
Although there were no casualties on the human side, by the end of the war,
fewer than 1,000 emus had been killed. In his final report, Major Meredith offered an unusual
total : 986 birds that were killed using 9,860 rounds of ammunition. He also claimed
that 2,500 more had died from wounds, though he didn't indicate how he determined that number.
It's estimated that the Emu War had one of the worst bullet-to-kill ratios in military history.
After the war, much of the public was also on the side of the emus. They were
disgusted by images of the slaughter. News of the Emu War even reached Great Britain,
where animal conservationists protested the war and decried the slaughter of a rare bird.
The Agricultural Board tried to get the farmers to reimburse them for the cost of ammunition.
The farmers claimed that they were owed money since they were the ones
slaughtering birds wounded by the machine guns.
Although the Emu War was declared over by the soldiers, with the emus as the victors, farmers
found themselves in the same position they'd started in. They again asked the government for
assistance in 1934, 1943, and 1948. But this time, the military decided not to get involved. The
farmers were told that using machine guns was out of the question. The government decided that the
least they could do was provide ammunition so that the farmers could address the problem themselves.
Over the course of six months in 1934 alone, over 57,000 emus were killed.
Between 1945 and 1960, over 284,000 bounties were claimed. Western Australia continued to
pay bounties for emus until 1999 when emus came under the protection of federal legislation.
In the end, the only thing that drove the emus away was scarcity. When the wheat was gone,
the emus moved on. A lasting peace
In the 1970s, farmers decided to start farming emus instead of fighting them, and the first
farmed emus were created. It began with capturing wild emus, and, ironically, feeding them primarily
wheat. By the 1990s, emu farming had caught on in all of the Australian states. By the mid-1990s,
over 60,000 emus were being farmed in Australia. With the birds' protected status, the emu
population in Australia is estimated to be at least 600,000, and they've been classified
as being "of least concern." However, wild populations of emus remain at risk of local
extinction due to encroaching human activity. In the end, ornithologist D.L. Serventy
summarized the Emu War the best with this very tongue-in-cheek quote:
"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."
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