In 1920, the Australian government purchased a large area of land to give to World War I veterans to plant crops. Much of this land had been taken from the First Nations people. There was another problem too. Thousands of emus used that land for grazing.

By 1932, nearly 20,000 emus were flattening the wheat fields needed to produce food and provide for the livelihoods of the farmers. When they were not able to remove the emus from their land, they called in the Australian government.

On November 2, 1932, the military arrived and was prepared to gun down a group of 50 emus grazing in a field. But when the soldiers began shooting, the birds scattered, creating chaos and spilling very little emu blood.

Two days later, the gunners tried again. This time, 1,000 birds were within range. The outcome seemed obvious. But when the military opened fire, the birds once again proved themselves to be far more clever than the leaders had bargained for.

Several more attempts were made, but each attempt led to the loss of many bullets and very few emus.

When the military did the math, they discovered it took 10 shots to kill a single emu and quickly found that the numbers were not in their favor. 

By the end of 1932, the Great Emu War ceased, but the problem continued. 

Over the next few years, the government provided ammunition for the farmers instead of sending soldiers to fix the problem. In the end, the farmers were able to protect their wheat fields and chase many of the birds away.