Animal Law in Australia

Abstract

For most people outside Australia in other continents, Australia is best known for hopping kangaroos, fluffy koalas, laughing kookaburras, and other native animals. Australia's unique fauna and flora and its biodiversity are some of the most significant on earth. However, less well-known to people outside Australia and to many Australians, Australia also has the worst mammals extinction rate in the world. Animal extinction and disappearance started to occur and was accelerated after European settlement due to myriad human-made or human-­initiated reasons. For instance, as Mark Twain described over a hundred years ago, the dingo was among those persecuted and sentenced to extermination by the newcomers until recent times. Thus, the laws to exterminate or harm animals and laws to protect animals have been written and implemented with equal zest at times, still true today; a contradiction that is not unique to Australia but universal to all human societies. Animal law in a way is an example of such a paradox - to protect animals from abuse and to legalise animal abuse, as illustrated throughout the book.