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"Haha Australia lost a war to emus twice"

NO BUT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!!

Here's why:

First, I don't believe foreigners know how BIG emus are, and how much of their stocky main body is just layers and layers of feathers

This is Peck. He doesn't actually Peck but he LOVES the LADIES and for reference, that's me as he's uh... trying to woo me. I'm 4'11 / 149cm tall and in that photo he's not standing at full height either because he's preparing to get lower and ahem, grind. He is also a juvenile.

Emus are typically 5.7 feet/1.75 meters tall, but they have been recorded to get up to 6.2 feet/1.9 meters.

So imagine you've got this big ass dinosaur bird with the most t-rex looking feet perfectly designed for running. Yeeting. Skeeting. Killing you maybe. And now take into account these flightless fucks can run up to 62 Kilometers per hour. THATS 39 MILES PER HOUR TOP SPEED.

Now add 20,000 emus.

So 20,000 emus against poverty-stricken farmers with failing crops, farmers WHO WERE MOSTLY WW1 VETERANS BY THE WAY. Yeah nah.

Here's a visual to help y'all understand how insanely large emu groups get.

Onto why the hell were there so many emus on the farmlands (even tho... yknow... the emus and the local indigenous were there first but we won't get into that.)

Basically a big drought made the horde of emus move away from their usual dwindling territory, onto the sprawling Australian "farm lands" and remember I mentioned their feet before? BIG STOMPY. Whatever crops that had somehow managed to survive the severely vitamin-deficient soil and grow, did not in fact, survive the dinosaur feet as the emus strolled through, pecking and foraging the ground along the way.

The plight of the veteran farmers didn't fall on deaf ears, but the Australian government severely underestimated the power of 20,000 emus by a LONG shot. Plus they weren't all that interested either, until at least it was reported that the emus were destroying the Rabbit Proof Fence. What legends.

For the first "war" the government sent 3 men.

Yep. You heard me. Three guys. Major Meredith, Sargeant McMurray and a soldier by the name of O'Halloran.

They had one truck with a machine gun, and probably other guns, but between them roughly 10,000 rounds of ammunition.

So off they went. To wage war against the progressive emus breaking the symbol of "White Australia" AKA the Fence. Oh and also I guess the starving vets.

This is it. This is what they had.

Locals from all around joined in the fight and tried to herd the roaming groups of emus into the murder range but the emus had a tactic. One that us Aussies use at bush doofs when you hear police sirens- and that is to SCATTER.

They only killed "a dozen birds" from a group estimated to be around 1000. It didn't help that the machine gun jammed during this organised ambush.

And by then, the Emus clicked onto what was happening. They split up into smaller groups, observed to be led by the largest sized male who kept an eye out for the enemy. Never again did they risk coming together as seen before.

The war was lost. Only a few more attempts were made that had little success and Ornithologist Dom Serventy concisely summarised the whole operation.

I want to remind you all that this is a recorded statement, kept on file in legal military documentation

"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."

Let's move onto Emu War Part Two: Unsuccessful Boogaloo

Heads up by the way, TW below.

Emus were still, y'know, Emu-ing about and the drought didn't let up either. People were still dying of starvation, becoming homeless and committing suicide. It took the Premier of Western Australia, and a Base Commander in the military penning letters and using media pressure to finally convince the government to give it another go.

Major Meridith returns to the War and having learnt from practically everyone's past assumptions of the highly intelligent sonic-speed bird, brought success. And by that I mean, more success than the previous war.

Ultimately only 5% of the 20k Emu Army were ever killed, and even that is debated since it is more than likely they inflated numbers of kills to lessen the damage of being completely inferior to the superb qualities of the Emu.

A Federal parliamentarian (like a senator) when asked about whether there should be a medal made for the conflict, he replied with:

"Any medals should go to the emus who had won every round so far."

And of course in true Aussie fashion, the Defence Minister who supported and approved for the Emu War 1 and 2, was given the title by the Australian public, and international conservationists of ‘Minister for the Emu War’.

Ouch, but also, Not Every Problem Has To Be Solved With Guns.

Ironically what worked far better was the implementation of fences to keep the Emus OUT and unfortunately, a bounty system that saw many locals and professional hunters alike have FAR more success than an entire military operation. 57,000 bounties were claimed in a six month period after it being introduced in 1934.

Thus concludes the Great Emu War of 1932.

If you're asking why I know this, I studied it when I was 16, and made an entire poster to which I gave it to my Japanese Teacher. For context: I was living in Japan. Going to a Japanese School. And teaching my poor English teacher about this Emu War that he only believed once he looked it up. As a parting gift I gave him a poster. Shout out to Kawamura-Sensei you tried so hard not to laugh at the poster but I won that war.