Living with animals

When the first European explorers came across Australia, they quickly left it again considering that it was not worth settling. Its conditions were too harsh and its animals were regarded as uneatable.

When the British finally settled here in 1788 they came prepared, bringing along their own plants and animals. Some of the introduced cattle later wandered off and so the first large ferals were off and away, and multiplying. These were later followed by cats, dogs, foxes and a myriad other animals.

One of the introduced animals - the sheep - of course soon became the pre-eminent colonist of Australia, bringing wealth and influence to generations of pastoralists - an influence that still persists today.

While the non-native animals were being introduced the local Australian fauna was not considered to be of much interest, except as scientific specimens or as things to be avoided. Native animals were frequently represented pictorially and hence became iconic, but, as they had no economic use or initial cost, the actual fate of these animals was essentially ignored.

These animals, however, soon had to be considered and, as always, it was to their detriment. Kangaroos and wallabies were killed as soon as the first pastoralist settled his land for sheep grazing - grasses now being restricted to only those animals of economic benefit. The killing of native wildlife, if it impacted even in the slightest on graziers or farmers or any other economic activity, had begun and the numbers of dead would only grow.

With the rise in Australian nationalism in the late 18th century Australian native animals gained a higher status especially with the urban populace. The rise of nationalism automatically engendered a diminishment in fondness for things and animals of European heritage. With the further realisation that imported animals, such as mice and rabbits, were taking on plague proportions, this preference was confirmed.

Once an animal became identified as un-Australian it lost all its charms and protections. If it was labelled as a pest or feral any animal could henceforth be legally trapped, shot, poisoned, hunted by dogs or just hacked at by all and sundry - and often for bounty. The rabbit was the first to be systematically destroyed in vast numbers; first by individual acts of human cruelty and later by eliciting germ warfare, we hated them so much.

Since then we have declared war on many other animals. Imported animals which are legally killed in numerous ways include horses, pigs, cats, dogs, rabbits, buffalo, camels and toads. The chance that this slaughter will ever stop is minimal as the Australian population continues to believe it is necessary and that without it we would be overrun by these animals.

Parts of the scientific community concur with this view. The “scientific” reasons for the continued killing, which have become flimsier over time, have now reached the level of the argument, as used recently by the ACT Government, which stated that culling kangaroos was necessary to prevent them dying of starvation - thus shooting kangaroos to prevent them from dying of natural causes. There appears to be very little understanding or consideration given to the natural ebb and flow of population according to conditions (such as food availability, climate, other species and so on), which has elsewhere constrained numbers.

Any animal which encroaches on human interests is fair game. Want to swim? Then net the beaches and let marine animals get caught up and die in the nets. Problems with bats eating your fruit? Then slaughter our native bats.

In enormous divergence to every other developed country, Australians kill vast numbers of wild animals due to the slightest inconvenience. Australia can claim the largest terrestrial slaughter of wildlife in the world. In 2007 the quota for the killing of kangaroos was set at 3.6 million. That 3.6 million is the basic figure, but of course the figure doesn’t include those joeys at foot that will die when their parents are shot. Nor does it include those also killed by amateur rather than professional killers.

Only Canada with its seal culls can come anywhere near this level of barbarity. However the slaughter there is carried out for a short period on ice flows a long way from habitation. In Australia the slaughter happens nightly just outside country towns. If Canadians had to witness their killings in this way it would not continue for long.

Australia seeks to condemn Japan for the killing of a few hundred whales. Japan gives dubious scientific reasons for its whale catch. If Australia was benefiting from killing whales, one can imagine how it too would lie in the face of world opinion, as it has done when world concern is raised about mulesing and live exports.

Australia, from all the evidence, is at war with its animals. It is an unceasing slaughter unprecedented anywhere else and it continues with public support and participation. It is no exaggeration to say that most interactions between Australians and animals that share the land, including domesticated animals, involves some violence or ends with an animal being killed and/or eaten.

Animal cruelty is seemingly no longer acceptable when it is visible in the cities and towns and when visited upon pets. But when it occurs in the bush or on farms it is condoned, supported and taxpayer funded, irrespective of what animal it is committed against.

The bush ethos or myth posits that true blue Australians consist only of a small minority who live in the country rather than in the city. This view that has been foisted on generations of urban Australians still has enormous power. Today there are few people who challenge the country lobby. City dwellers may subsidise their farms, their loans, their crops, their machinery, their fuel, their water, their entire community infrastructure, give flood and drought relief, yet it is apparently not acceptable that we ask them in return to adhere to even the most rudimentary standards of animal welfare.

Their only response to this is to say that we fail to understand their country ways, are divorced from nature and are overly sentimental, and then to boldly state that they in fact care for animals more than we.

Aside from the 3 per cent of Australians who do not currently eat meat, the rest lead lives that cause quiet misery. Across Australia all communities combine in the fulsome support of the meat industry. The Australian consumption of meat has always been among the highest in the world, and it remains of the highest cultural significance: the barbeque being the apotheosis of Australianness.

We have low levels of animal welfare standards on our factory farms so that pigs, for example, may endure the mental and physical torture of close confinement throughout their lives. And even the most minimal standards are rarely if ever checked, the only real checks being carried out by a handful of Animal Liberation volunteers - facing violence and prosecution for doing so.

We also happily mutilate and kill sheep in the millions and transport thousands large distances to be killed elsewhere. The shooting of ducks, the hunting of feral animals with dogs all continue. Fishing, although it is now known to be cruel, remains hugely popular.

The hope for the future is not that Australians will suddenly develop a new set of moral standards when it comes to other animals, but that climate change will force them into re-assessing their behaviour.

It is now known that the animal industries are uniquely bad for the environment. The unsustainable raising of millions of animals for meat, is destroying our land, wasting our water and polluting our air and waterways. If we can move away from meat, then the numbers of farmed animals will decline, and there will be more space for our other wildlife which will hopefully mean less slaughter all round.

Australians will not need to learn to love animals, but they could by some miracle learn to live peacefully beside them.