| The Great Emu War | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Aug 2 2013, 03:03 PM (218 Views) | |
| Eric | Aug 2 2013, 03:03 PM Post #1 |
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Knight Of Spam / Royal Fool
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Both Jimmy and I have read about this a couple of times before, so I'll post this to give anybody else the opportunity to read about this incident. I have highlighted the more interesting parts. From wikipedia: "The Emu War, also known as the Great Emu War, was a nuisance wildlife management operation undertaken in Australia over the latter part of 1932 to address public concern over the number of emus said to be running amok in the Campion district of Western Australia. The attempts to curb the population of emus, a large flightless bird indigenous to Australia, employed soldiers armed with machine guns—leading the media to adopt the name "Emu War" when referring to the incident." Summary of the background is that Australia was dealing with the great depression in 1929, and farmers were encouraged to produce more crops. This was a problem not only because of the farmers that were pissed at the government, but also because of a large group of emus that had migrated. So to take care of this horrible problem, Australia deployed some soldiers to decrease the population of those emus. From Wikipedia: "On 2 November the men traveled to Campion, where some 50 emus were sighted. As the birds were out of range of the guns, the local settlers attempted to herd the emus into an ambush, but the birds split into small groups and ran so that they were difficult to target. Nevertheless, while the first fusillade from the machine guns was ineffective due to the range, a second round of gunfire was able to kill "a number" of birds. Later the same day a small flock was encountered, and "perhaps a dozen" birds were killed. The next significant event was on 4 November. Meredith had established an ambush near a local dam, and over 1,000 emus were spotted heading towards their position. This time the gunners waited until the birds were at point blank range before opening fire. The gun jammed after only twelve birds were killed, however, and the remainder scattered before more could be killed. No more birds were sighted that day. In the days that followed Meredith chose to move further south where the birds were "reported to be fairly tame", but there was only limited success in spite of his efforts. At one stage Meredith even went so far as to mount one of the guns on a truck: a move that proved to be ineffective, as the truck was both unable to gain on the birds and the ride was so rough that the gunner was unable to fire any shots. By 8 November, six days after the first engagement, 2,500 rounds of ammunition had been fired. The number of birds killed is uncertain: one account claims just 50 birds, but other accounts range from 200 to 500—the latter figure being provided by the settlers. Meredith's official report noted that his men had suffered no casualties. Summarizing the culls, ornithologist Dominic Serventy commented: “ The machine-gunners' dreams of point blank fire into serried masses of Emus were soon dissipated. The Emu command had evidently ordered guerrilla tactics, and its unwieldy army soon split up into innumerable small units that made use of the military equipment uneconomic. A crestfallen field force therefore withdrew from the combat area after about a month. " On 8 November, representatives in the Australian House of Representatives discussed the operation.[6] Following the negative coverage of the events in the local media,[12] which included claims that "only a few" emus had died, Pearce withdrew the military personnel and the guns on 8 November. After the withdrawal, Major Meredith compared the emus to Zulus, and commented on the striking maneuverability of the emus, even while badly wounded. “ 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. They are like Zulus whom even dum-dum bullets could not stop. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War |
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| Shiny Star | Aug 2 2013, 04:21 PM Post #2 |
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Everything Animal Crossing Legend
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What the hell did I just read? |
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| Eric | Aug 2 2013, 04:27 PM Post #3 |
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Knight Of Spam / Royal Fool
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Something educational |
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| Shiny Star | Aug 2 2013, 04:28 PM Post #4 |
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Everything Animal Crossing Legend
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You copied and pasted it. Didn't school teach you anything? |
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| Eric | Aug 2 2013, 04:28 PM Post #5 |
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Knight Of Spam / Royal Fool
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yes but i included the source |
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| SavageStorm | Aug 2 2013, 05:37 PM Post #6 |
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Console Gamer
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So Australia lost a war to flightless birds? Brilliant. |
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I opened up my life to you, I told you everything I knew, You listened so closely to, You listened so close when love was just a way out But you're going deaf now, Yeah, you turned your head around. Spoiler: click to toggle
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| Eric | Aug 2 2013, 05:39 PM Post #7 |
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Knight Of Spam / Royal Fool
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pretty much |
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