page_title: King Island emu
section_title: Relationship with humans
hierarchical_section_title: King Island emu / Relationship with humans
caption_attribution_description: Dwarf emus and other animals outside Château de Malmaison. Frontispiece from the Atlas of the Voyage de découvertes aux Terres Australes.[1]
context_page_description: The King Island emu is an extinct subspecies of emu that was endemic to King Island, in the Bass Strait between mainland Australia and Tasmania. Its closest relative may be the extinct Tasmanian emu, as they belonged to a single population until less than 14,000 years ago when Tasmania and King Island were still connected. The small size of the King Island emu may be an example of insular dwarfism. The King Island emu was the smallest of all known emus and had darker plumage than the mainland emu. It was black and brown and had naked blue skin on the neck, and its chicks were striped like those on the mainland. The subspecies was distinct from the likewise diminutive Kangaroo Island emu in a number of osteological details, including size. The behaviour of the King Island emu probably did not differ much from that of the mainland emu. The birds gathered in flocks to forage and during breeding time. They fed on berries, grass and seaweed. They ran swiftly and could defend themselves by kicking. The nest was shallow and consisted of dead leaves and moss. Seven to nine eggs were laid, which were incubated by both parents.
context_section_description: The emus of King Island were first recorded by Europeans when a party from the ship Lady Nelson, led by the Scottish explorer John Murray, visited the island in January 1802. The bird was sporadically mentioned by travellers henceforward, but not in detail. Captain Nicolas Baudin visited King Island later in 1802, during an 1800–04 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 became stranded due to storms and took refuge with some seal hunters. They were served emu meat, which Péron described in favourable terms as tasting halfway "between that of the turkey-cock and that of the young pig".
  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 that he used to interview 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.
caption: Two small emus and other animals outside Château de Malmaison
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