 In John Gould's Handbook to the Birds of Australia, first published in 1865, he lamented the loss of the emu from Tasmania, where it had become rare and has since become extinct; he noted that emus were no longer common in the vicinity of Sydney and proposed that the species be given protected status. In the 1930s, emu killings in Western Australia peaked at 57,000, and culls were also mounted in Queensland during this period due to rampant crop damage. In the 1960s, bounties were still being paid in Western Australia for killing emus, but since then, wild emus have been granted formal protection under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. Their occurrence range is between 4,240,000 and 6,730,000 km2 (1,640,000 – 2,600,000 sq mi), and a 1992 census suggested that their total population was between 630,000 and 725,000. As of 2012, the International Union for Conservation of Nature considers their population trend to be stable and assesses their conservation status as being of least concern. The isolated emu population of the New South Wales North Coast Bioregion and Port Stephens is listed as endangered by the New South Wales Government.
