Dark Emu - Relationship With Humans

Relationship With Humans

The Emu of King Island were first recorded by Europeans when a party from the ship Lady Nelson lead by John Murray visited the island in January 1802. The bird was sporadically mentioned by travellers henceforward, but not in detail. Captain Nicolas Baudin visited these islands later in 1802, during a 1800–1804 French expedition to map the coast of Australia. Two ships, Le Naturaliste and Le Géographe, were part of the expedition, which also brought along naturalists, who described the local wildlife. François Péron, a naturalist who was part of Baudin's expedition, visited King Island and was the last person to record descriptions of the King Island Emu from the wild. At one point, Péron and some of his companions were stranded due to storms and took refuge with some seal hunters, by whom they were served Emu meat, which Péron described in favourable terms:

The mighty cassowary, 5 to 7 feet tall, lays eggs the size of an ostrich’s, but more delicately flavoured; the flesh... half-way (so to speak) between that of the turkey-cock and that of the young pig, is truly exquisite.

Péron did not report seeing any Emus on the island himself, which might explain why he described them as being the size of mainland birds. Instead, most of what is known about the King Island Emu today stems from a 33-point questionnaire which he used for interviewing a local English sealer, Daniel Cooper, about the bird. In accordance with a request by the authorities for the expedition to bring back useful plants and animals, Péron asked if the Emus could be bred and fattened in captivity, and received a variety of cooking recipes. Péron's questionnaire remained unpublished until 1899, and very little was therefore known about the bird in life until then.