Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), Saturday 12 November 1932, page 22


ATTACK ON EMUS.

Minister Approves of Resumption.

CANBERRA, Friday.—The machine-gun attack on the emus which have been ravag-ing crops in Western Australia has been re-sumed. The Minister for Defence (Sir George Pearce) said to-day that, acting on press reports of the use of personnel of the military forces with machine-guns, which had been provided at the request of the State Government of Western Australia, and of farmers whose crops were being spoilt be the incursion of large numbers of emus into the outer fringe of the wheat belt,

he had withdrawn the party. He had since received a report from the base comman-dant, Perth, which indicated that 300 emus had been killed, and strong representations had been made by the premier of Western Australia (Sir James Mitchell), and also by the farmers, that, owing to the hot weather and the absence of water in the interior, the emus were appearing in thousands. Knowing, as he did, the tremendous dam-age that these birds could cause in a stand-

ing crop, and with a desire to save the loss to the farmers, he had approved of the party returning to the wheat belt.