Australian hunting and angling sports and the changing nature of human-animal relations in Australia

Abstract

While broad international currents of change affected human-animal relations in Australia, the precise course and pattern of change was influenced by changes specific to Australian society. The paper suggests that two discourses are especially significant in specifying the nature of change. First, a colonial dis course (Britainisation), which sentimentalised British species and sought to implant them in Australia, and second, a nationalising discourse (Austra lianisation) that used the Australian biotic community to symbolise Australia, national identity and citizenship. Hunting and angling in Australia are com paratively free from the criticism that such sports attract in the USA and the UK, and it is argued that we can understand why this is so in relation to the historic tensions between the two discourses and their effects on Australian classifications of and attitudes to animals.