MicroFactzzz#0095 · 🏛️ History Gone Off the Rails
Australia Declared War on Emus — and Lost
In 1932, the Australian military deployed machine guns against wild emus destroying crops — and still couldn’t beat them.
In 1932, in Western Australia, tens of thousands of emus migrated through farmland, trampling wheat crops and fences. The government sent in the military, armed with machine guns, to solve the problem by force.
The operation, led by Major G.P.W. Meredith, turned out to be a fiasco — the emus proved surprisingly hard to hit, capable of running up to 50 km/h, and scattered into small groups the moment they heard gunfire.
After several days of action, thousands of rounds had been fired, but relatively few birds were killed. The press dubbed the event the "Great Emu War," and the commander wryly compared the emus’ resistance to the discipline of combat troops.
The operation was ultimately withdrawn as a military failure — the emu problem was later solved through bounty payments to farmers instead of regular troops.
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Krulicza Nora
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