Following the end of the first world war large numbers of Australian and British veterans moved to western Australia and took up farming in isolated communities inland from the large cities.

When the price of wheat rose rapidly during the late twenties many of these farmers began to increase the amount of the grain they planted. With the onset of the great depression in 1929 many of the farmers were then promised heavy government subsidies if they continued to grow wheat. And so for the next few years the farmers planted, farmed and harvested wheat which no one bought and with no government money to show for their efforts.

You may be asking where the Emu come into our little story. In fact some of you may be wondering just what an Emu is. Well I can tell you both. The Emu is a large flightless bird native to Australia. These birds migrate inland from the coast for breeding season during the summer. Just when the wheat crop is ready to be harvested.

Well in 1932 over twenty thousand of these birds made the journey. And right smack dab in the middle of their path was the lush fields of wheat planted and all ready to be harvested by the farmers.

The Emu being birds and not people they did the inconsiderate thing and trampled all over the farmers crops. The farmers were understandably incensed at the behavior of the birds and demanded that the government take some action to solve the problem. A few men even went to the territorial governor and asked that machine guns be put at their disposal to fight the birds. The governor, knowing the effectiveness of machine guns in the first world war agreed and several thousand rounds of ammunition and a few lewis machine guns were put at the disposal of the ex soldiers.

What then followed was a month of utter hilarity in which several men were wounded due to friendly fire, tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition were expended across most of western Australia. And not a single Emu was confirmed killed. Thats right your ears did not deceive you, not one of the big birds was killed despite major effort on the part of hundreds of men.