By Derek Schlennstedt
To the uninitiated, emus are just large flightless birds that run around and lay unnaturally large eggs. But to those of us who remember the Great Emu War these birds pose a very real risk to the natural order.
The Great Emu War of Australia may sound like a joke, but I assure you it was very real, and in 1932 the Australian army was called in to the Western Australia district of Campion after a marauding emu population of at least 20,000 emus had been devastating farms across WA.
No sooner had the conflict begun, however, than it became clear that the Australian military had vastly underestimated the emu. Cunning adversaries, the emus proved almost impossible to hit with machine-gun fire, and they seemed able to shrug off even serious injury from bullets without breaking stride.
So, why am I telling you this? Well, between 8-10 November Victoria Police received a number of phone calls about a lone emu, lurking on the roadside of Wellington Road.
According to a Facebook post, Police reported that the bird was seen crossing Wellington Road over the weekend and believed that it had escaped from the fenced area in Cardinia Reservoir, where an entire platoon of emu’s are known to dwell.
Although Police attended and assisted Wildlife Victoria in trying to return the bird to the fenced area, it’s understood the large legged flightless boi escaped and has since been on the run.
Since then, naught has been heard of the jail-bird, but the Mail has been attentively tracking ole mate’s movements.
On 11 November, he was discovered in Menzies Creek, along Selby-Aura Road. Just today, (12 November) reports have come in that he was seen along Wellington Road, near Aura Vale Lake.
While I for one will be avoiding the entire area, if you do see the emu it’s probably best to report his location to Wildlife Victoria on 03 8400 7300
