Australian emus: unwanted, unemployed, running amok and ending up as roadkill in India

UNWANTED, unemployed, running amok ... then ending up as roadkill. Aussie expats are in trouble overseas — and they can’t fly home.

15 Jun 2000 : Australian Coat of Arms on Baggy Green cap. Australian cricket. emblem /hats sport uniforms hats

IT was a boom that has well and truly bust — and among the victims are a particularly iconic band of Aussies.

Emus, to be precise.

The emu farming market in India has collapsed, leaving thousands of the Australian native birds homeless.

It would be tempting to write that the market failed to “take off”, were it not for the grim reality for the birds. Many have been let go by farmers and are winding up as prey to stray dogs or as roadkill.

Businessweek reported that emu farming in India began to boom five years ago, but the market started collapsing last year.

The site quoted estimates that there were two million of the birds on farms in India in 2012, but only 350,000 now, thanks in part to a large emu-farming scam that drastically devalued the price of the animals.

Birds of a shelter ... an Indian veterinary worker feeds rescued emus at the Asha Foundation and animal shelter outside Ahmedabad. Picture: Sam Panthanky

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The government in Tamil Nadu state seized thousands of emus after arresting the perpetrators of the scam and sold them at rock-bottom prices, devaluing a stock price that was already unsteady because of oversupply.

Birds that could be sold for 12,000 rupees (AU$222) as the market peaked are now selling for only 700 rupees ($AU13), Businessweek reported.

An animal shelter outside Ahmedabad currently houses some 50 emus, rescued from various abandoned farms across Gujarat state. The birds were set free once it became uneconomical to continue feeding them. Other farmers are simply slaughtering their stock.

One farmer quoted by the site said people were “lured into the emu business with schemes and promises that their investments would double in three to six months,” but now “there is no business because of a few greedy men.”

Emus are farmed for a variety of purposes, including their hides and their meat, which is low in fat. Emu oil is also used a moisturiser and a treatment in some alternative therapies because of its anti-inflammatory properties.

Emu farming started as a commercial venture in Western Australia in 1987 and takes place in all Australian states except for Tasmania.