The Great Emu War

In 1932, the Australian military declared war on emus.

And lost.

This episode dives into the bizarre 1932 campaign in Western Australia, where soldiers were sent to protect farmland from emus and discovered that birds in open country are remarkably hard to defeat.

Beneath the absurdity is a serious story about drought, soldier-settlers, and what happens when governments try to force a simple solution onto a messy environmental problem.