So, a long time ago back in 1932, the Australian military took up a large military effort to curb emu populations. The massive birds had been trampling crops all over the Campion District within Western Australia’s Wheatbelt.

However, Emus are tricky.

Not only are they dangerously curious, and known for messing with people for their entertainment, (Literally, emus are known to do that old “poke a guy’s shoulder and swerve to the other side” prank.) but emus are also built like feathery tanks and have evolved many effective survival tactics.

Emus like to gather in groups called ‘mobs’ (Not kidding), and when they detect a threat, they break up into smaller groups and run in several directions. This means focusing on them with gunfire isn’t all that effective.

The soldier set up on the backs of trucks and drove around the Australian wilderness firing thousands of machine gun rounds at emus, only for each mob to scatter to the winds. Only six days after the first shots were fired in early November, over 2,500 rounds of ammunition had been fired, and only an estimated 50 emus had been killed. 50 Emus. Out of 20,000.

Not great.

The military’s second attempt was a tad better, with around 40 emus killed in two days. However, these days would begin to show diminishing returns. And by December, soldiers were killing approximately 100 emus per week. Major Gwynydd Purves Wynne-Aubrey Meredith reported 986 confirmed emu kills with 9,860 rounds. And claimed EXACTLY 2,500 wounded birds had also died from their injuries.

Uh-huh.

Well, after an undoubtedly massive chunk of money had been spent ending the lives of thousands of emus that probably should have instead gone to providing aid to depression-era farmers, the Australian government decided to kill two birds with one stone.

(A-hyuck.)

A bounty system, once issued in 1923 was continued, and this resulted in 57,034 emu bounties claimed over six months in 1934, ultimately proving far more effective.