From Killing Koalas to Cats: Colonialism continues to underpin Australia’s culture of animal cruelty
Australia’s long history of battling biological 'problems' with reckless brutality, is just how semantics continues to help sanction this ongoing, colonial violence. Whether native or not, once an animal is labelled a 'pest', 'feral', or 'invasive', they become a problem to the colony. As a result, they lose their right not only to life, but even a humane death. This brutality is exemplified by the use of sodium fluoracetate (1080), Australia’s current weapon of choice against 'pests' and 'ferals'.
ELENA FILIPCZYK: In June this year, the Western Australian government proudly announced its strategy to kill “feral” cats by spraying them with toxic gel. The plan is to roll-out 16 box-like devices, called Felixers, which will trap cats and dispel a toxic gel onto their coats. The cats, as groomers, will then lick it off and die. According to their manufacturers, the Felixers are designed to “help control and reduce the number of feral cats and foxes, and thus improve the welfare of native animals”.
On the surface, it’s apparently this kind of concern for the “welfare” of Australia’s native species that underpins our lethal control of cats and other “feral” species. But a closer look at our history reveals that cats are just the latest in a long line of animals who have fallen victim to Australia’s colonial war against “invasive” wildlife — and most of them have been native species…
After colonisation, Australia’s early settlers hunted native game sporadically, but relied primarily on introduced domesticated animals, like cattle and sheep, for food and clothing. Under the colonial gaze, native animals were seen as defective, and by the mid-1800s, acclimatisation societies were taking up the call to actively populate the Australian continent with “useful” exotic species, including deer, foxes, and rabbits…
Viewed as competition to grass-eating cattle and sheep, macropods like kangaroos and wallabies also faced persecution (and still do). By the late-1800s, farmers had been so successful in lobbying the government for protection of their stock that there had been bounties on dozens of “nuisance” animals, including foxes, pigs, wombats, dingoes, wallabies, bandicoots, and bilbies. Not even the koala was safe. Though not considered a pest, when settlers realised they could turn a profit from fuzzy grey pelts, koalas also faced the firing line, with at least 8 million shot between 1888 and 1927…
For centuries, agriculture and the pursuit of profit have clearly taken precedence over the welfare of wildlife. Even today, our legislation and social norms reflect an entitlement to land and animal life that is still intensely colonial: we consider it our right to control which animal belongs where, in how many numbers, and what they’re allowed to do…
From the deer wandering our suburbs, the kangaroo sold as pet food, or the wombat burrowing on farmland, the victims of Australia’s colonial control of animals have always been inconveniences to our lives, a resource worth exploiting for our gain, or an expense affecting our bottom line. So we kill them…
Perhaps more interesting than Australia’s long history of battling biological “problems” with reckless brutality, is just how semantics continues to help sanction this ongoing, colonial violence. Whether native or not, once an animal is labelled a “pest”, “feral”, or “invasive”, they become a problem to the colony (or society). As a result, they lose their right not only to life, but even a humane death…
Today, this brutality is exemplified by the use of sodium fluoracetate (1080), Australia’s current weapon of choice against both native and introduced “pests” and “ferals”. With millions of baits dropped into the wild each year, 1080 is commonly used to target cats, foxes, rabbits, pigs, dingoes, wallabies, and possums. Cheap and easy to apply, 1080 causes slow, agonising deaths typified by screaming, vomiting, urinating and defecating uncontrollably, difficulty breathing, and seizures. Usually, death comes after a final, violent convulsion…
With legislation and popular conservation culture sanctioning the lethal control of ferals, the social license to kill is passed around society. Not only do individuals know they can get away with killing for convenience, they believe they’re providing a beneficial service to Australia in doing so. For certain social-media savvy conservationists, the moment that an invasive animal steps into the wild, having slipped from the docile domestic to the menacing feral, they are fair game, to be killed for the greater good of our native species…
Though cats have clearly become the latest scapegoat for Australia’s colonial “land management”, the real issue is that Australia’s convenience killing runs much deeper than what we do to ferals. Sure, we kill “destructive invasives” like brumbies and cats. But we also kill kangaroos by the millions for daring to exist near pastoral land, or even native magpies for swooping in our suburbs…
For millions of unlucky “ferals” and “invasives” in Australia, a long, painful death is their “deserved” fate, simply for existing. And rather than being mourned, they will become statistics in government reports, their bodies will be paraded as trophies on social media pages, and their deaths will be lauded a victory for native animals — well, at least some native animals. SOURCE…
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