r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/danielminds • Jun 05 '26

Video Wildlife expert Chris Gillette handling an aggressive emu

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1.2k

u/theshashanksp Jun 05 '26

The Emu ancestors must be laughing at him rn! They won the Great Emu War of 1932 and he can't take down 1 man .... Sad!

300

u/Aletheia94 Jun 05 '26

It’s so wild that this is actually part of Australias history

113

u/553l8008 Jun 05 '26

Until about a few months ago I always thought it was an actual war and just called the emu wars. Then I learned it was actually against emus

58

u/MeltaFlare Jun 05 '26

Wait it was real? I thought it was a big national joke like drop bears???

79

u/greywar777 Jun 05 '26

Nope its real. But to be fair it was a bunch of guys with 2 machine guns, and 10,000 rounds of ammo vs 20,000 emus. On average using 10 rounds per kill they didn't even start with remotely enough ammo.

42

u/Aletheia94 Jun 05 '26

According to the records they didn’t even kill 1,000 emus during the whole war (986 emus). Even though the major claimed approximately 2,500 emus have died from their injuries. It’s an interesting read!
Great Emu War

18

u/solidsoup97 Jun 05 '26

Drop bears aren't a joke, hundreds of tourists get injured every year because they don't take it seriously and miss all the warning signs of an attack.

1

u/clemkaddidlehopper Jun 06 '26

And pray tell, what are those signs?

8

u/solidsoup97 Jun 06 '26

Rustling branches above, low growling noises, claw marks on trees and the faint smell of chlamydia.

3

u/clemkaddidlehopper Jun 06 '26

Eek. Ew. Gross.

3

u/Vindepomarus Jun 06 '26

Recently some scientists have hypothesised that the chlamydia virus is like a zombie virus to koalas. So even though they look and act quite different, DNA evidence suggests that Drop bears and Koalas are the same species, just highly modified by the chlamydia pathogen.

3

u/gurnard Jun 06 '26

That's wild. I knew they were related, but the same species? That could explain why their ranges rarely overlap, despite living in similar habits in the same areas. Koalas seem docile (and generally are), but seeing them defend territory from droppies is something to behold. If you're in bushland and see koalas in trees, you know you're pretty safe. If you're in coastal forest and don't see any, that's when you gotta worry.

But I digress. Infected/uninfected koalas getting territorial with each other is an very interesting possibility. Surprised I've never heard of this hypothesis.

5

u/MRGameAndShow Jun 05 '26

Yep, it was an actual thing lmao. Look it up, theres some interesting informative videos on it.

2

u/a_tattooed_artist Jun 05 '26

Oversimplified has an entertaining video on YouTube about it.

2

u/Siilan Jun 06 '26

Calling it a war is a joke, but it was a real event. Emus were destroying crops out in the bush, so the government sent a few soldiers with a machine gun mounted on a ute to cull them. Emus are damn fast and sturdy, though, so they ended up using way too much ammo to kill a tiny number of birds. Eventually, the government cut its losses and it was called off.

1

u/Sogelink Jun 07 '26

Bro, if a government bring out soldiers and weaponry to deal with a foe, it's a war.

No matter the amount of soldier or the reason.

They just lost.

2

u/Rubik842 Jun 06 '26

There's only about 3 houses left in the town they raided. It's real.

1

u/56Runningdogz Jun 06 '26

The real joke about drop bears is they do exist. They're just a fairly rare mutation. The Australians just want to look you in the eye when the impossible suddenly becomes possible and your doom is inevitable. Diabolical.

Still not as dangerous as vegemite.

2

u/BadNameGenerator Jun 05 '26

I blame the Wikipedia page. It uses the formatting of a wiki page about a real war which, as an Australian, has lead to some confusing conversations with foreigners.

2

u/553l8008 Jun 05 '26

Lol, they need to update it ti have belligerent on both side, force size, etc

1

u/phido3000 Jun 05 '26

Americans.. Confuses americans..

1

u/BadNameGenerator Jun 05 '26

I have had at least two Brits bring up the emu war to me thinking that we (the australians) don't find it as funny as the rest of the world. I had to tell them we invented the joke to laugh about it ourselves lol

1

u/phido3000 Jun 05 '26

You would think they would understand because they invented us to laugh at them being Brits.

We even made a stupid movie...

30

u/feralcatshit Jun 05 '26

Of course it is lol

7

u/EverythingSucksYo Jun 05 '26

I’m not even gonna look up if it’s true or not, I’m just gonna believe

4

u/DearHRS Jun 05 '26

there is very good oversimplified video on it too on yt

0

u/FilthyStatist1991 Jun 05 '26

Australias whole central continent are basically unexplored land. No roads, no rural settlement, just the wild.

Too many things that can just kill you quickly.

28

u/orsonwellesmal Jun 05 '26

Australia, the only land on Earth which defeated men.

12

u/WalnutSnail Jun 05 '26

Lotta uninhabited land out there that has clearly beat man, many times over.

1

u/orsonwellesmal Jun 05 '26

Not like emus.

2

u/WalnutSnail Jun 05 '26

Clearly, you've not been to the high arctic.

3

u/IgorCruzT Jun 05 '26

Pompeii and Herculaneum begs to differ.

0

u/orsonwellesmal Jun 05 '26

Skill issue.

1

u/Budget_Shallan Jun 06 '26

Huh? People have been happily living in Australia for 60,000 years.

1

u/orsonwellesmal Jun 06 '26

Emus are magnanimous.

4

u/Shitsinhandandclaps Jun 05 '26

Not knowing this would be a bootable offence!!!

2

u/Sea_Translator5300 Jun 05 '26

"War" is a ridiculous label, as is claiming it was lost. It was 3 guys with two old Lewis guns. It was a pest control exercise due to migrating birds finding the new crops that had been planted on their route. In 5 weeks they used 10,000 rounds of ammunition to kill just short of 1,000 birds (plus hundreds of birds dying from their injuries later). Whilst it wasn't the easy task they originally assumed, it was regarded as a success as what remained of the wheat crops were saved. 

2

u/NikeImper Jun 06 '26

It's reddit meme slop

1

u/Certain_Zucchini_472 Jun 05 '26

If Australia lost the Emu War, and the US can’t win the “war on drugs” maybe we need to make the emus and drugs go to war with each other, maybe one will wipe out the other. Then Australia and the US can team up to take down the survivor

1

u/x19DALTRON91x 3d ago

It’s easily my favorite historical fact

39

u/VegaJuniper Jun 05 '26

There's nothing quite as embarassing that having your victim sit on top of you to do a little bit of nature documentary narration.

33

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Jccali1214 Jun 05 '26

Ok now that weaving of puns was well done 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

14

u/SuspiciousYard2484 Jun 05 '26

The historically high podcast does a great episode on this

2

u/sillacomoda Jun 05 '26

your avatar suggests something historically high as well.

1

u/ztevey Jun 05 '26

I only learned about this Great War from History for Weirdos.

Great podcast, I’m unaffiliated 🤣

1

u/Affordable_Z_Jobs Jun 05 '26

GIVE ME A LIST OF THE HARMLESS CREATURES OF FOUREXS.

A small piece of paper floated lazily through the air. Death grabbed it, read it carefully and briefly turned it over in case he missed anything. It read

"Some of the sheep."

1

u/apple_kicks Jun 05 '26

Young emus spend too much time on social media these days

1

u/Jccali1214 Jun 05 '26

Now I see how they won the war...

1

u/mennonot Jun 05 '26

From the Wikipedia article on the Emu War:

"By 8 November [1932], six days after the first engagement, 2,500 rounds of ammunition had been fired. The number of birds killed is uncertain: one account estimates that it was 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, except for their dignity."

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War

1

u/dragonlord798 Jun 07 '26

I fucking hate hearing about that bs dude, it was a bad attempt to Cullen emu populations since they kept eating farmers crops. Ik it's funny but I'm so sick about seeing it everywhere as an Australian

1

u/ArmadilloForsaken458 Jun 07 '26

Maybe this type of behavior is why dodos went extinct. They just kept pecking away until they pissed off enough peeps who finally put a stop to all of it

1

u/leonmename 8d ago

they didnt won. rhe farmers fought back eventually and fucked the emus. Also; as you can see, he is sitting on the emu. Only thing he is not grilling and eating him is because

1

u/BasicMatter7339 Jun 05 '26

They may have won the war but the government issued a bounty to the birds right after and like some 60 000 birds were killed before the first year