Ferals or food? Does hunting have a role in ethical food consumption in Australia?

Abstract

Although hunting is pursued by relatively few people in Australia, increasing attention to ‘ethical’ consumption is renewing interest in hunting as a source of ‘ethical’ meat and complicating our views about it as a leisure activity. Most scholarly attention about hunting practices has been focused in Europe and North America, and we argue that Australia provides a unique context for exploring hunting and its association with ethical consumption because of attitudes to native versus introduced animals and gun ownership. With increasing public attention to both animal welfare and ethical consumption, it is timely to revisit public attitudes to hunting as a leisure activity in Australia and explore the values and motivations of recreational hunters.