Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and
Speaker 1: there's Chuck and there's Jerry. Let's go. So do you
Speaker 1: remember when we went to Australia on tour? Yes, I
Speaker 1: do remember how fun that was. It was fun. It's
Speaker 1: like it was just a dream. It was like a dream,
Speaker 1: a good, good dream. Uh. When we were there, like
Speaker 1: we do it um all of our live shows, we
Speaker 1: do some Q and at the end and take questions.
Speaker 1: And on more than one occasion and more than one city,
Speaker 1: we had someone stand up and said, uh, something along
Speaker 1: the lines of you should cover the emy wall, mate,
Speaker 1: and we're like, we thought EMUs were birds, and they went,
Speaker 1: just look it up right, So we did that and
Speaker 1: here it is. Go okay, all right, let's go. So
Speaker 1: to go, Chuck, we have to go back to the
Speaker 1: end of World War One and a lot of Australian
Speaker 1: veterans were returning from the war and the government said,
Speaker 1: you know what, we want to show you guys how
Speaker 1: happy we are with you, and just to say thanks,
Speaker 1: We're gonna set you up with a bunch of acres
Speaker 1: of farmland and you can start farming. And not only
Speaker 1: can you start farming, if you grow wheat, we'll buy
Speaker 1: it from you at ridiculous prices. So basically, we're setting
Speaker 1: you up to go set up a life for yourself
Speaker 1: as farmers here in Australia. And it sounded pretty great, right,
Speaker 1: Like all the veterans were like, yeah, let's let's do that.
Speaker 1: Give us some land. And that's where the first problem
Speaker 1: comes in. Yeah, because they didn't have enough land. They
Speaker 1: didn't know. I don't know if they didn't think they
Speaker 1: would as many would take them up on it, or
Speaker 1: if they didn't count right, but they had about uh
Speaker 1: two hundred close to two acres of land to split
Speaker 1: between five thousand soldiers. Um. It was doled out in order. Um.
Speaker 1: Obviously the best stuff went away first and then uh,
Speaker 1: if you're at the end of the line, you got
Speaker 1: your land in Perth, which sound like a dig I
Speaker 1: love Perth. I thought it was great. It was much
Speaker 1: different than I thought. It was pretty amazing. But it's
Speaker 1: apparently not great for farming, right, it's not great for farming.
Speaker 1: They're also rabbit infestations. UM. I believe there's also a
Speaker 1: drought in Western Australia, which is where Perth is. Um.
Speaker 1: So all of this happens right after um, the government
Speaker 1: agrees like to set all of their veterans up like this,
Speaker 1: So it looks really bad that immediately there's hardships associated
Speaker 1: with this kind of government doll dole plant right. Um.
Speaker 1: Then the Great Depression ends up hitting. But as it's hitting,
Speaker 1: there debating exactly how much they're gonna pay for this
Speaker 1: wheat that their veterans are going to grow for them,
Speaker 1: and it starts out really really generous. They say like
Speaker 1: four shillings, which is right per bushel. I'm sorry, no
Speaker 1: per piece of wheat um, which is at the time
Speaker 1: that was pretty good price for a bushel of wheat,
Speaker 1: and it was like government subsidized wheat. And then the
Speaker 1: government said, yeah, we're not going to do that. Let's
Speaker 1: try again, and they came up with another bill and
Speaker 1: they said three shillings. He said, okay, that's still pretty good,
Speaker 1: and they finally settled and in nine at four and
Speaker 1: a half pence, And there's not many pence and a shilling,
Speaker 1: so that was a pretty steep reduction between four shillings
Speaker 1: down to four and a halfpence per per bushel. So
Speaker 1: that's kind of like they're starting to add insult on
Speaker 1: to injury. Now, all right, so park that to the
Speaker 1: side and we'll tell you a little bit about the
Speaker 1: Australian emu, which um I saw on a couple of
Speaker 1: my little uh adventure trips. I'm sure you did as well.
Speaker 1: They are um. I mean a dumb American might say
Speaker 1: it looks like an Ostrich. That was about to say
Speaker 1: it looks like an Ostrich. Yeah, we're dumb Americans. Let's
Speaker 1: say this. It looks more like an Ostrich than it
Speaker 1: looks like a cardinal. Right, way to save us, chuck. Uh.
Speaker 1: They're you know, they're tall. They're about six six and
Speaker 1: a half feet tall, depending they can weigh up to
Speaker 1: a hundred pounds or more. They kind of do their
Speaker 1: own thing for the most part. Uh. They get together
Speaker 1: to breed, but they really don't like to be around
Speaker 1: other EMUs usually except when they go off and get food.
Speaker 1: They're they're grazers and they will graze together, but they're
Speaker 1: all like, they're all just sort of in the same
Speaker 1: area grazing. They're not like forming a pack or forming
Speaker 1: a bond or anything like. Uh. They're just hungry and
Speaker 1: they're big, and they like to hang out generally by
Speaker 1: themselves unless you've got tons and tons of new wheat
Speaker 1: fields in Western Australia. Yeah, they'll they'll eat just about anything,
Speaker 1: but that. You know, if they have a plentiful supply
Speaker 1: of wheat, you can attract a lot of emuse with
Speaker 1: a lot of wheat. And so all of a sudden
Speaker 1: there's a big old supply of wheat in Western Australia
Speaker 1: because all these veterans showed up and started growing it there.
Speaker 1: And so the emu started to come and they started
Speaker 1: to eat this wheat. And the veterans said, whoa, whoa, whoa, emuse,
Speaker 1: this is my wheat. I'm growing this because the government
Speaker 1: is going to pay me for it, um and you said,
Speaker 1: we don't care. We're gonna eat your eat anyway. And
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the first shot in what would
Speaker 1: become the Emu War was fired by the EMUs. And
Speaker 1: we'll come back right after this to finish this ridiculous story.
Speaker 1: If you want to know then you're in luck. Just
Speaker 1: listen to don't chuck self shore. All right. So it's
Speaker 1: these veterans are growing wheat in Western Australia and twenty
Speaker 1: tho EMUs seen nothing basically but a big wheat buffet
Speaker 1: in front of their faces, and so they descend upon
Speaker 1: Western Australia. The veterans are like, um, it's out of control.
Speaker 1: I don't know if anyone's noticed, but we actually need
Speaker 1: help government. You gave us this land, you're not paying
Speaker 1: us well for it, and now these EMUs are eating
Speaker 1: at all and that this is gonna be a big
Speaker 1: problem for the country if Western Australia is tanked all
Speaker 1: of a sudden economically because of these EMUs. And so
Speaker 1: the army, under the direction of Major General P. W. Meredith,
Speaker 1: said let's go kill a bunch of EMUs, right right,
Speaker 1: because so like this is this is a problem that
Speaker 1: has kind of saddled um the Western Australia veterans who
Speaker 1: are growing weed out there. But it's also a really
Speaker 1: big opportunity for the government to show just how much
Speaker 1: they care about their veterans. They're gonna send the army
Speaker 1: out to take care of this emu problem. And so
Speaker 1: the government saw it is enough of a propaganda move
Speaker 1: that they actually sent out at Fox movietone news cameraman
Speaker 1: to film this whole thing to be used as propaganda
Speaker 1: to show what the government's doing and I guess because
Speaker 1: they assumed that most Australians would want to see twenty
Speaker 1: thousand EMU slaughtered by machine guns. They would, so they
Speaker 1: sent somebody to go film this, this massacre. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: this was all under There was a deal to be
Speaker 1: made and they said, all right, we'll do this. We'll
Speaker 1: help you out, but you gotta pay for the ammunition veterans,
Speaker 1: and you got to provide food and lodging for these soldiers.
Speaker 1: And the veterans said what the veterans said, all right,
Speaker 1: I guess we have no choice, so sure we'll do that. Um.
Speaker 1: Here's the other thing about the EMU. If you get
Speaker 1: a gun out and you start shooting at them, they're
Speaker 1: gonna stop grazing and they are going to go berserk
Speaker 1: right right, because remember they don't actually have much of
Speaker 1: like a society or a pack or anything like that,
Speaker 1: so they're not coordinating. It's just every EMU for itself
Speaker 1: all of a sudden. And if you have twenty thousand
Speaker 1: of them doing every EMU for themselves, yes, it's like
Speaker 1: what you said, it's they go berserk. Yeah. So there, Um,
Speaker 1: it's a big problem. You've got machine guns. These emu's
Speaker 1: twenty thousand of them are are It's not like they're
Speaker 1: all packed in a couple of wheat fields. They're spread
Speaker 1: all over Western Australia. They're all over the place. They're running. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's crazy town that these EMUs are running everywhere like uh,
Speaker 1: crazy birds with their gangly legs and there. I mean,
Speaker 1: have you ever seen an EMI run. It's pretty funny looking.
Speaker 1: I've seen an Ostrich run. It's probably close, you know,
Speaker 1: more like more the same than a Carlinal cardinal running. Uh.
Speaker 1: And if you've got a machine gun, you're just spraying
Speaker 1: bullets basically hoping that you're gonna hit an EMU. There's
Speaker 1: no like take aim and fire. They're just like shooting
Speaker 1: that direction. And the result is they're not killing many
Speaker 1: of these things at all. No. No, I mean they
Speaker 1: were surprised to find that they might as well have
Speaker 1: been deployed to go shoot at a b problem with
Speaker 1: machine guns for the effect it was having on the EMUs.
Speaker 1: They were just the emails were basically indestructible, it turned out,
Speaker 1: not because they could withstand a bullet, but because they
Speaker 1: were just they were moving too quick and too bersik
Speaker 1: to get hit by a bull bullet. You know, they're like,
Speaker 1: I put three bullets into this thing, but it just
Speaker 1: made them angry. It didn't even break eye contact. So
Speaker 1: they had these machine guns are jamming. They didn't have
Speaker 1: a lot of guns. Uh. You know, it's a problem
Speaker 1: if they're worried about the cost of ammunition to begin with. Uh.
Speaker 1: They stage multiple offenses over the course of about six days,
Speaker 1: none of which were very effective, and media coverage starts
Speaker 1: pouring in. It's not a very good look. Uh So
Speaker 1: six days later they kind of bail on that stage
Speaker 1: another attempt a few weeks later that was not much
Speaker 1: more successful. I mean, we're talking about killing a few
Speaker 1: hundred birds out of right, and they were apportioned ten
Speaker 1: thousand rounds of ammunition. They used hundred rounds just to
Speaker 1: kill two hundred was in EMUs. So they were pretty
Speaker 1: surprised that that. Like, when those numbers started coming in
Speaker 1: and the rest of Australia heard about this, it did
Speaker 1: not look very good for the military. No, it did
Speaker 1: not look look good. And even at the at the time,
Speaker 1: and even in Australia at the time, it wasn't a
Speaker 1: good look for the army to be slaughtering birds. Sure,
Speaker 1: even though they had been classified as vermin at the time,
Speaker 1: I think most people were like, what are you guys doing.
Speaker 1: I'm glad the EMUs are winning. So people started rooting
Speaker 1: for the EMUs. Yeah, so there's uh, it's it's pretty
Speaker 1: much a big disaster. Um. Like I said, they had
Speaker 1: a couple of offenses they mounted. None of them were
Speaker 1: super successful. Uh, they eventually just stopped. Basically, the EMUs
Speaker 1: won the War of the EMUs right for the for
Speaker 1: then for for the time being, at least with the military.
Speaker 1: After that, the farmers in Western Australia said, um, we'll
Speaker 1: just take care of this ourselves, and so they found
Speaker 1: that just using a UM single shot rifle was much
Speaker 1: more effect active, so much so that within a few months,
Speaker 1: something like fifty thousand EMUs had been killed in Western
Speaker 1: Australia by gun, just not machine gun. Yeah. And you
Speaker 1: know what really helped was in when they started to
Speaker 1: build fences around these farms. Helped a lot. Um that.
Speaker 1: It didn't help though, that the army had actually broken
Speaker 1: one of the fences they while they were still shooting
Speaker 1: at the EMUs. They had mounted a machine gun onto
Speaker 1: the back of a car. Yes, and we're riding along
Speaker 1: and I guess they ran over an EMU and it
Speaker 1: got caught up in one of the axles so that
Speaker 1: they couldn't steer, and they drove through somebody's fence, which
Speaker 1: made all the papers as well, because that was a
Speaker 1: big part of the EMU wars too que yakety sax exactly. Apparently,
Speaker 1: the people in Western Australia asked for assistance from the
Speaker 1: government again for EMUs in thirty four, forty three, and
Speaker 1: forty eight, and each time the government and army said no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we're not going down that road again. But the and
Speaker 1: the email said can you guys just please leave us alone?
Speaker 1: And the government finally said yes and protected them once more.
Speaker 1: They were no longer vermin. So we'll say this is
Speaker 1: a happy ending. I guess not if you're an email,
Speaker 1: but sure, I got nothing else, all right. That's it.
Speaker 1: Short stuff. Stuff you should Know is a production of
Speaker 1: iHeart Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.