Emus once roamed Tasmania, so what happened to them?

ABC Radio Hobart 

By Georgie Burgess

Posted Sat at 9:33pm

It's hard to imagine free-ranging emus foraging across Tasmanian plains in 2019.

But, there is a reason why Burnie used to be called Emu Bay. The large flightless birds once called the island state home.

The University of Tasmania's Tristan Derham said the birds were throughout Tasmania's midlands and the north-east and north-west of the state.

"It's not really clear why the emu went extinct in Tasmania," he said.

The emus were said to be a smaller sub-species of the mainland emus but there are few detailed descriptions of the bird.

Mr Derham said he had researched eyewitness accounts of emus through reports by divisive colonial leader George Augustus Robinson, explorer Matthew Flinders and the diaries of clergyman Robert Knopwood.

"I haven't found a lot of evidence they were much different from mainland emus," he told ABC Radio Hobart.

European settlers recorded feasting on emus and kangaroos upon arrival in Van Diemen's Land.

"The early colonists were crazy for hunting emus and kangaroos," Mr Derham said.

The species survived in the wild until 1865, and the last captive bird died in 1873.

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Island emus’ size related to size of island homes

Date:  April 4, 2018

Source:  The University of Adelaide

Emus that lived isolated on Australia's offshore islands until the 19th century, including Kangaroo Island, King Island and Tasmania, were smaller versions of their larger mainland relatives -- and their overall body size correlated to the size of the islands they inhabited.

Published today in the journal Biology Letters, this was the surprise finding of a University of Adelaide study that analysed the DNA and bone measurements of the now extinct small emus, using both ancient and modern museum specimens. The study revealed that the small stature of the island emus evolved relatively quickly.

Australia's iconic emu is the only living representative of its genus but fossil evidence and reports from early European explorers suggest that three island forms became extinct during the 19th Century. While the King Island emu had already been shown to be of the same species as the Australian mainland emu, little was known about the evolutionary relationships of the others.

"Our results have shown that all the island emus are genetically closely related to the much larger mainland emu," says lead author Dr Vicki Thomson, an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Award Fellow at the University of Adelaide's School of Biological Sciences.

Continued

World’s Biggest Birds Are Stellar Dads and Unusual Lovers

When it comes to child care and mating, ostriches, emus, and the like are, well, odd ducks.

By Liz Langley

PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 3, 2016

When Nathan Young asked “What’s the difference between an emu and an ostrich?” Weird Animal Question of the Week decided to explore the whole group to which those birds belong, the flightless ratites.

As you’ll see, these birds are odd ducks (though there isn’t a duck in the bunch).

Big Birds Don’t Fly

The ratites include African ostriches and emus, cassowaries, and kiwis, all of the South Pacific and greater and lesser rheas of South America.

All ratites lack a keel, or an extension of the breastbone where flight muscles attach, says Rebecca Kimball, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Florida.

Kimball was co-author on a 2008 study showing that ratites likely lost the ability to fly independently of one another, rather than losing flight much earlier and getting to their diverse locations via continental drift, as previously thought.

Continued 

Police in Texas film themselves in pursuit of four runaway emus

Emmitt, Huey, Dewey and Louie escaped from their owner's house and were described by police as "very dangerous"

By Keely Lockhart, video source Storyful Pro / Instagram/roundrockpolice / Dawn Watson

11:19AM BST 23 Oct 2015

Police in Round Rock, Texas, received an unusual call on Thursday after four escaped emus were spotted wandering through a residential neighbourhood.

Emmitt, Huey, Dewey and Louie went on the run after escaping from their enclosure in their owner's garden.



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Major concern raised over new Australian mega-fence as a threat to emus

Fence would cut major woodland and threaten emus - Courtesy of BirdLife International   

January 2013. BirdLife Australia (BirdLife Partner) has joined an alliance of conservation groups calling on the West Australian government to halt its plans to extend the State Barrier Fence.

Construction of the fence extension in the Esperance region would create a largely continuous barrier that would run through five bioregions from North of Geraldton to Cape Arid.

BirdLife Australia has many serious concerns about this proposal, including concerns that the WA Government made a commitment to build the fence prior to the completion of appropriate socio-economic and environmental studies.

However our major concerns relate to the potential ecological impacts of the fence, particularly where the fence will cut through the Great Western Woodlands, separating 300,000 ha of contiguous bush from the main woodland block.

BirdLife Australia Conservation Manager Jenny Lau said that the fence may lead to the death of thousands of emus in migration years, prevent dingo re-establishment and destroy at least 1000 hectares of bushland.

At a time when most governments are working to improve wildlife corridors, the WA government's plans to create a massive wildlife barrier, deliberating fragmenting the world's largest remaining intact temperate woodland, is both puzzling and disturbing.

Please help  BirdLife International  Stop and Rethink the Fence by taking action now.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/australia-fence.html