ABSTRACT
There is increasing awareness of 'ethical' food production and consumption in most of the more developed countries, including Australia, but extremely different ideas exist about what is considered to be 'ethical'. Although hunting as a leisure activity is pursued only by a small percentage of the Australian population, even within these groups there are radically different motivations for and understandings of this activity. As the relationships between humans and animals vary "according to historical, regional and cultural contingencies" it is impossible to understand the place of hunting in Australia, either for food or leisure, without understanding the contingencies that make Australia unique. As the species recreationally hunted in Australia are all introduced, a large part of the justification for hunting is that hunters are serving a vital ecological function by preventing overpopulation. A final rationale relevant to hunting in Australia relates to waste and food security, as large swathes of the continent are unsuitable for farming.
