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Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of IHeart Radio.

Hey, Brainstuff.

I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and this, this is a classic from the vault.

In this one, we dig into the weird moment in history when Australia went to war with a local population of emus and absolutely lost.

Hey, Rainstuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here with the story of the emu war.

It begins after World War I. When soldiers returned home to Australia, the government

was eager to show its support for veterans. Take land, the government said, grow wheat and we'll pay

handsomely for it. It was a mission for the bright-eyed and hopeful for men eager to cultivate their

futures as they cultivated the soil in Western Australia. You could say the plan was flawed

from the start. The government had 90,000 hectares, that's 222,000 acres to go around, but that

wasn't enough for the nearly 5,000 veterans who wanted it. Land was doled out as it became available,

and the choicest lots were given away first. The remaining veterans

got land in Perth, which was not ideal for farming. What's more, in the years that followed,

the initial land handout in the early 1920s, Western Australia combated drought, frost, and a

significant rabbit infestation. While veterans labored against the elements and the wildlife,

mounting financial challenges

from the Great Depression threatened to undercut all they had been promised.

The Australian government had initially pledged to pay the veterans four shillings per bushel of wheat,

but the bill tied to that sum was killed in the Senate.

Another bill proposing three shillings per bushel actually passed, but the veterans were

...