Begun, the Camel War has. This month, Australia began the first wave of a great camel cull in its remote northwest state of South Australia.
The devastating bush fires that have ravaged the country since September have precipitated a water shortage in the region. As the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports, dry conditions and a population boom have caused an estimated 10,000 feral camels to flock to water sources, exacerbating the drought and resulting in “significant damage to infrastructure.” The one-humped Arabian dromedary camel can drink up to 30 gallons of water at a single time and smell water from more than three miles away. Groups of feral camels have been raiding water tanks and even attacking air conditioners for their moisture.
To combat the threat, the South Australian Department for Environment and Water has supported an “aerial control operation,” hiring professional snipers to shoot down feral camels from above. Officials reported that the helicopter-borne marksmen killed more than 5,000 in the first five-day wave. But never fear, PETA: a DEW representative assured that the dromedaries are “destroyed in accordance with the highest standards of animal welfare.”
Thankfully, this Australian wildlife management operation is proceeding more successfully than past attempts. In 1932, the Western Australian government waged a failed assault against the country’s emu population in what has come to be known as the Great Emu War.
A mass arrival of 20,000 emus wracked the cultivated farming communities of Western Australia that year. The large, flightless birds — a single emu species belonging to the family Dromaiidae and native only to Australia — migrated after breeding season and laid waste to wheat crops, also destroying fences and other pest barriers, causing further crop destruction. At the behest of affected farmers, already concerned about falling wheat prices in the wake of the Great Depression, the government, led by Minister of Defense Sir George Pearce, approved the use of military force to combat the feathered menace.
Under the command of Maj. G.P.W. Meredith of the Royal Australian Artillery, a deputation of soldiers armed with two Lewis machine guns and 10,000 rounds of ammunition set off on Nov. 1, 1932. “The machine-gunners’ dreams of point blank fire into serried masses of Emus were soon dissipated,” wrote ornithologist Dominic Serventy of their first foray. “The Emu command had evidently ordered guerrilla tactics, and its unwieldy army soon split up into innumerable small units that made use of the military equipment uneconomic.”
A second culling attempt soon followed, and while the Aussie troops managed to kill “a number” of birds, the operation on the whole was regarded as an utter failure. A special correspondent for the Sydney Sunday Herald wrote of the campaign: “This, the most ambitious project in the history of Western Australia’s emu war, was the one which failed most miserably, and which brought for the bird its most complete victory.”
Meredith later praised his victorious foe, remarking that the tactical maneuverability of the flightless birds was comparable to Zulu warriors. “If we had a military division with the bullet-carrying capacity of these birds,” he declared, “it would face any army in the world.”
