Have you ever just wanted to declare a war on an animal? If you have wanted to, then you’re probably crazy, but Australia would be on your side. On November 2, 1932 the Australian government declared war on emus this war was called the “Emu War”. This is because there was a vast amount of emus (about 20,000!) migrating toward the coast after breeding season. This resulted in the emus destroying and eating farmers’ crops.
In 1932, Gwynydd Purves Wynne-Aubrey Meredith of the Royal Australian Artillery’s (what a long name) travelling with two men, “Sergeant S. McMurray and Gunner J. O’Halloran” went to an abandoned town called Campion (not a good name for an abandoned town) where they spotted 50 emus. After a short battle a number of those emus died, this was the start of the “Emu War”. On November 8th an estimate of 50 to 500 emus had been killed and a about 2,500 magazinzes of ammo had been fired. “If we had a military division with the bullet-carrying capacity of these birds it would face any army in the world … They can face machine guns with the invulnerability of tanks.” Stated Major Meredith.
After the first attempt to get rid of the emus failed farmers once again need help with the emus. On November 13th 1932 the Australians once again tried to get rid of the emus except this time they were succeeding, due to the lack of people to help in the war Meredith had to go back out and claimed he had a total of 986 kills. The Australians thought they had won but news of this war got all the way to the United Kingdom where protest happened about the attempted destruction of emus. The emus got the last laugh as technically the Australians never killed the whole species and so the emus won the war. If you were in the “Emu War” which side would you be on?
