Truth Is Stranger: The Emu War and Other Unbelievable True Stories

In November 1932, Major G.P.W. Meredith of the Royal Australian Artillery was quoted in a newspaper comparing his enemy to Zulu warriors—remarkably disciplined and masters of guerrilla tactics. Okay, a Major in 1932... I'm guessing he wasn't actually fighting Zulus in Australia. No. He was fighting emus. We mentioned the Great Emu War last week, and I just couldn't let it go. The story is even more absurd than we thought. So you're telling me we're dedicating a whole episode to this. I'm in. What happened? Why did the government of Australia decide to deploy the military against a flightless bird? Well, it's post-World War One. You have a bunch of veterans who've been settled on marginal farmland in Western Australia.

And then the Great Depression hits. On top of that, about twenty thousand emus, migrating after their breeding season, realize these new wheat farms are a fantastic, all-you-can-eat buffet. Ah. So it's a pest control problem. But you don't usually call in the artillery for pest control. Right. But the farmers, many of them ex-soldiers, petitioned the Minister of Defence. They said, "Hey, we have a plague of emus, and you guys have machine guns. Put two and two together." And the Minister of Defence said… "Sure"? He did! The thinking was, it would be good target practice for the gunners, and it would look like the government was doing something to help the struggling farmers.

So they sent Major Meredith, two soldiers, and two Lewis machine guns with ten thousand rounds of ammunition. Ten. Thousand. Rounds. They were expecting a massacre. They were. But the emus had other ideas. The first attempt, they spotted a flock of about fifty birds. They set up the guns, got ready to open fire, and... the birds just wandered out of range. Okay. So they're not just dumb animals. Not at all. The emus seemed to understand what was happening. They'd split into small groups, running in all directions. The Major noted that it seemed like each flock had a leader, a big black-plumed bird, who would keep watch and give the signal to scatter.

The machine guns, designed for static targets, were almost useless against these fast, unpredictable birds. So the soldiers are just spraying bullets into the bush while the emus are zigzagging away. I can picture it. It’s… embarrassing. It was a total fiasco. A few days in, they staged an ambush. They found a thousand emus near a dam. This was it. Their big chance. And then… one of the Lewis guns jammed after firing just a dozen shots. Oh, no. By the time they got it working, most of the birds were gone. After that first week, the official report was... maybe fifty birds killed. One account said it was more like twelve. Wait—with thousands of rounds fired?

That's... that's an unbelievable failure rate. Exactly. The press had a field day. It became a national joke. The military operation was called off after about a week. They actually tried a second time a few weeks later, with slightly more success, but it was still pathetic. In the end, they fired almost all ten thousand rounds and killed fewer than a thousand emus. So the military just… gave up. The emus won. The emus won. The military formally withdrew. Major Meredith was apparently very impressed with the birds, saying "If we had a military division with the bullet-carrying capacity of these birds it would face any army in the world." That is the most backhanded compliment I have ever heard.

It reminds me of other times we've tried to use a really blunt instrument to solve a delicate problem with nature. It almost never works. It never does. The government eventually just switched to a bounty system, which was way more effective and a lot cheaper. But for one brief, shining moment in 1932, the Australian military went to war with its wildlife. And lost. It's a good reminder. Sometimes the simple, brute-force solution isn't a solution at all. Especially when your enemy can run thirty miles an hour. And has, apparently, mastered guerrilla warfare. It makes you wonder what other secret wars between man and animal have been lost to history.