So if you’ve been on the internet long enough, you’ve probably heard about the Great Emu war.
It's a battle pitting man against bird, and
guess what? Man lost. If you haven’t heard of it or you’re just
wondering if it actually happened… Hello! Welcome to NerdyAndQuirky. Here’s some cool
history on Australia’s war on emus.
Our story begins in Western Australia in the late 1920s. Y’see towns were popping up
to settle soldiers after the First World War. About 5000 servicemen were given farmland
to tend to wheat and sheep. It was going great until 3 terrible things happened in pretty
rapid succession. First, in 1929, The Great Depression dropped
the price of wheat. The Australian government promised subsidies… but the money never
came in. Second, a drought. So not only was their wheat
selling under price… they couldn’t grow enough of it.
And finally, by 1932, 20 thousand emus arrived. Wait what?
Here’s the thing about emus, after their breeding season inland, they head to the coast
for a sweet post-coital vacation, and they chose to party on the farmland.
And now, this sounds hilarious, if not adorable, until you realize that the emus were really
terrible guests. They would trample and eat the farmers’ already struggling crops, they
would tear holes into fences, and they would make paths for other vermin like rabbits to
join the party as well. It was basically a music festival except instead
of hipsters in headdresses… it was 6 foot tall flightless birds.
Terrifying.
So the farmers had a problem and they were getting pretty EMUtional about it.
But being a colony of ex-soldiers, they figured: if we get a few machine guns, we can fix this.
So they petitioned the Australian government and met with the minister for defense at the time:
George Pearce. And you’d think if a bunch of farmers went
up to the government and said, “We need machine guns to shoot some birds,” they’d
be laughed right out of the room. But George Pearce heard them out, and he agreed
to supply them with a small army and guns.for 2 reasons. One: Birds would make excellent
target practice, and two: he figured it would be a good PR move. He even sent a camera crew
to cover the war, to show that he was taking care of the veterans.
But things were rocky from the start. The war was scheduled to begin in October 1932
but was delayed for a month due to rain…
Then on November 2nd, 1932, the troops arrived lead by Major G.P.W. Meredith of the Seventh
Heavy Battery of the Royal Australian Artillery.
The war was on! Pearce challenged the men to gather 100 emu skins… Inglourious Basterds style.
Each and every man under my command owes me 100 emu scalps! And I want my scalps!
Except, it seems emus are a lot harder to kill than Nazis.
The first attack was on a mob of about 50 emus… Which, side note… should’ve been
a sign of how tough this mission was gonna be that a group of emus is called a MOB.
With such a large group, the soldiers figured they could just fire their machine guns and
wipe them all out. I mean, the guns fired 300 rounds a minute… No man could escape
the hail.
Except, emus are no man.
The birds quickly ran out of range of the guns and began to adapt to the hunt -
Planet of the Emus style.
One soldier even said, “Each pack seems to have a leader now, a big black-plumed bird
which stands fully six feet high and keeps watch while his mates carry out their work
of destruction and warns them of our approach.”
Which, again: terrifying BUT HILARIOUS! And if you think so too, make sure to hit that
like button! Or else the emus will find you.
Anyway, there was a report of some more tame emus down south which should’ve made for
easier targets, but even those ones were too tough for the men. Major Meredith finally
went F*** IT! And put the guns on the trucks for a good ol drive-by. But the emus outpaced
them! Clocking in at 50 kilometers per hour - or 31 miles per hour for you imperial heathens
- the trucks couldn’t keep up and the ground was too unstable to take a shot.
They did manage to kill at least one bird... by running it over. Which caused the car to
swerve and crash into a fence. Even dead, the bird still won!
By November 8th, just 6 days after deployment, the first round of the war was over. The press,
originally outraged by the concept of cruelty behind the mission, just began to roast its
many failures. Reports of the number of emus killed ranged from 50 to 500. Either way,
with 20 000 emus… that means they only solved about 2.5% of the problem.
The birds still ruled the land.
Which sucked for the farmers who just wanted to work. So they continued to petition for help.
And by November 11th of the same year, the second round of the Emu war was approved
and the machine gun party returned on November 13th.
Now this time around, these men were battle-hardened. They knew the strengths and the weaknesses
of these birds. They were ready.
And a month later, on December 10th, in what must have been the highlight of Major G. P.
W. Meredith’s military career… almost one thousand of the birds were dead.
986 in 9860 shots. A kill rate of 10%. The emus were scared off. MAN. HAD. WON!!!
Except, about 3 years later, the birds were back with a vengeance. Oops!
So that was just some cool history on the great emu war. Now, what about you guys? What
should I talk about next week? The wild life of Julius Caesar or are you up to learn about
the best hoaxes history has to offer? Tell me down below. Don’t forget to subscribe
to NerdyAndQuirky for more Cool History and if you want to keep on learning, check out
these videos I make on the Snarled youtube channel about awesome females in history!
It's a good time, but either way, have a lovely day!