An Improper Nature? Introduced Animals and ‘Species Cleansing’ in Australia

Abstract

This chapter investigates the social and cultural content to ‘eradication thinking’ and ‘eradication programs’ (‘species cleansing’) for introduced species in Australia. What is held up by science, environmental organizations and State Parks and Wildlife departments to be a purely scientific and ecological (natural) imperative is exposed to contain themes of nationalism and social exclusivity. This content is then analysed and explained using a sociological analysis of postcolonial Australia in which introduced species can be identified first as the heroic triumph of a British colonial culture, acclimatized against all the odds to replace an ‘inferior’ indigenous nature; second, as unwanted Other to native species which then became the totemic centre of newly forming Australian social solidarities in the early twentieth century, and third, as a generalized metaphor for external threats to Australian integrity, security and identity.