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The great Texas emu bubble | An Investment That Never Took off; What if tulips had been six feet tall and ran at 50km an hour?
Quote:
"The world's second largest bird after the ostrich, the emu is native to Australia and has long been a source of mystical inspiration -- and sustenance -- for aboriginals. The big bird claims a place in Australia's coat of arms, stamps and 50-cent coin. It even sparks a military deployment, the Great Emu War of 1932, when soldiers were sent to Western Australia to kill them and thereby saved the farmers' crops. The emus won.
" * * * the three-toed bird * * * the emu was also seen as a potential source of red meat -- a healthier version of beef. It was in this guise, as livestock, that emu came to Texas in the 1980s. [Texas had an emu bubble:] Enthusiasm and emu-friendly regulations saw the price of a breeding pair of emus, just a few hundred dollars in the late 1980s, rise [because of 'saw' -- not 'rose'] to a whopping $28,000 by 1993. The next year it doubled again. The American Emu Association, an industry group, saw its membership rise 27-fold between 1988 and 1994, to 5,500 members,m most of them in Texas. * * * the state [Texas] has a long history of raising cattle for slaughter * ** Some boosters also heralded the potential of ostriches, but emus won out over their ratite cousins.
"As in all bubbles, from the 17th-century Dutch 'tulipmania' to 21st-century bitcoin, words of the wonders of the emu spread * * * Their boosters were keen to point out that there was more to emu than steak. They provided oil for lotion, skin for leather, feathers for clothes and enormous emerald eggs for four-person omelettes. * * * And Texas ;aw was, and is, extremely lax when it comes to the import of exortic animals. The state is believed to have more tigers living in captivity in backyards than exists in the wild worldwide ['The global wild population is estimated to number between 3,062 and 3,948 individuals, down from around 100,000 at the start of the 20th century * * * with 2,000 of the total population living on the Indian subcontinent': Wikipedia for Tiger].
"they [emus] do have redeeming features. They need much less land to graze than cows. They are quieter, too, except during the breeding [I will say 'mating'] season. the birds have a powerfully proto-feminist attitude to the patriarchy. Females choose males, rather than vice versa, sometimes going so far as to fight over them [males]. Males take on the responsibility of incubating the eggs, refusing to leave the nest to eat or drink for weeks at a time, and then raising their chicks as single parents. * * * They are as tall as human beings, growing up to 190cm (6 feet 2 inches) and easily weighing 55kg (120lb). Being the only bird with calf muscle helps them sprint at up to 50kph (30mph) * * * They can also kick.
"And raising the birds was not cheap. * * * Emu claims lower cholesterol and fat, and higher iron, but it is more expensive than beef and less familiar. * * * As the hoped-for demand failed to materialise, the supply continued to increase. Emus lay 5-15 eggs in each clutch and can keep doing so for more than 15 years. The bubb;e [p[[ed painfully [in Texas]. By 1998 e,us were worthless. * * * One result is that there are mobs of feral emus in parts of Texas * * * More recently India experienced its own emu boom * * * They [Indians] made the same mistake Texans did by focusing on hatching new birds instead of creating demand for the meat. The market collapsed in 2013.
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发表于 1-7-2019 14:29:45
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