ABSTRACT
Food and tourism inevitably go together on city holidays and in places where historical artefacts in the “new” cities of Australia are not the drawcard. This chapter highlights the ethical issues involved in not only making a certain species, a tourist attraction but also on making them ''killable''. In the context of the Melbourne food and tourism industry, it discusses some aspects of interspecies encounters that are often unspoken and invisible. The chapter refers the wild contact zones where animals are in their usual habitat and are not tamed or domesticated like pets or farm animals. It also refers the food tourism rather than culinary tourism, as the latter implies that the emphasis is on cooking and kitchen skills rather than on the product. Tourist encounters with animals are a potential site for negotiating difference and there are distinct cultural differences in the way animals are perceived.
