On the 8th of November, the Australian House of Representatives discussed the military operation. A crestfallen field force therefore withdrew from the combat area after about a month.” 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. “The machine-gunners’ dreams of point blank fire into serried masses of Emus were soon dissipated. Summarising the 6 days of war, an ornithologist named Dominic Serventy commented: Emu Commander – By JuggaloICP (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons The Aftermath The number of birds killed is unclear: one account claims just 50 birds, but other accounts range from 200 to 500.įortunately for Major Meredith the military had not suffered any casualties at the ‘hand’s’ of the Emus, according to his official report anyway. Considering so many shots were fired the emu casualties were not great. By the 8th of November, only 6 days into the war, 2,500 rounds of ammunition had been fired. In the days that followed Major Meredith chose to move further south where the birds were “reported to be fairly tame”. The gun jammed after only 12 birds were killed and the remaining Emu’s scattered before more could be killed. This time they waited until the birds were at point blank range before opening fire. On the 4th of November Major Meredith had prepared for an ambush near a local dam and over 1,000 emus were spotted heading towards their position. Later the same day a small flock was encountered, and “perhaps a dozen” birds were killed. A second round of gunfire was able to kill “a number” of birds. The first series of shots fired was ineffective due to how far away the Emus were. However the birds split into small groups and ran so that they were difficult targets. The birds were out of range of the guns, so the locals attempted to herd the emus into an ambush. On the 2nd of November 1932 the military traveled to Campion, where some 50 emus had been seen. Australian Emu’s – By Eduardo Mariz from Sydney, Australia, via Wikimedia Commons The Emu War Being ex-military they were all aware of how effective machine guns would be. Unbelievably, in order to solve this problem the military were sent to the region with machine guns! Sir George Pearce was ex-military and the soldiers (now farmers) requested that machine guns be sent to the area. The Australian Government was not providing the farmers with subsidies which they’d been promised and at the same time wheat prices had been falling.Ī group of ex-soldiers who had settled in the area were sent to speak with the Minister of Defence, Sir George Pearce. Farming was already difficult before the Emus appeared in the area. The emus also damaged fences which allowed rabbits to get through and to also destroy the crops (The rabbit-proof fence is another story!). The farmers were obviously not happy because their wheat crops were being destroyed. An estimated 20,000 emus realised that the newly cultivated farmland in Campion was a good place for them to breed and to find food. Emus migrate from the coastal regions to inland regions each year for breeding.
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