Emu War

The Emu War was a military operation in Western Australia, where thousands of emus had moved into farmland and were damaging wheat crops. Farmers, many of them First World War veterans who had been settled on marginal land, asked the government for help. The Minister for Defence sent soldiers armed with Lewis machine guns under Major G. P. W. Meredith. The birds proved difficult targets, because they scattered into small groups and were fast, and the troops killed relatively few of them. The press mocked the campaign, and the soldiers withdrew after a few weeks. Later the state introduced a bounty system for killing emus instead, and the episode has become a popular example of a failed attempt to control wildlife.

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