Peter J. Lis pathbreaking new book, Animal Welfare in China, is timely and valuable. ANTHROZOOESThe issue of animal welfare has attracted attention in Australia in recent decades. Activists and welfare organisations have become increasingly vigorous in promoting a new ethical relationship between humans and animals, and in challenging practices they identify as inhumane. In 2011 this agitation culminated in the temporary suspension of cattle live exports, with significant economic and political implications for Australia. Similar campaigns have focused on domestic food production systems and the use of animals in entertainment.Despite this increased interest, the policy process remains poorly understood. Animal Welfare in Australia is the first Australian book to examine the topic in a systematic manner. Without taking a specific ethical position, Peter John Chen draws on a wide range of sources including activists, industry representatives and policy makers to explain how policy is made and implemented. He explores the history of animal welfare in Australia, examines public opinion and media coverage of key issues, and comprehensively maps the policy domain. He shows how diverse social, ethical and economic interests interact to produce a complex and unpredictable climate.Animal Welfare in Australia will be of interest to scholars and practitioners of public policy, those interested in issues of animal welfare, and anyone wishing to understand how competing interests interact in the contemporary Australian policy landscape.Some supplementary graphs and images can be found at https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/15349

Animal death is a complex, uncomfortable, depressing, motivating and sensitive topic. For those scholars participating in Human-Animal Studies, it is - accompanied by the concept of 'life' - the ground upon which their studies commence, whether those studies are historical, archaeological, social, philosophical, or cultural. It is a tough subject to face, but as this volume demonstrates, one at the heart of human-animal relations and human-animal studies scholarship. ... books have power. Words convey moral dilemmas. Human beings are capable of being moral creatures. So it may prove with the present book. Dear reader, be warned. Reading about animal death may prove a life-changing experience. If you do not wish to be exposed to that possibility, read no further ... In the end, by concentrating our attention on death in animals, in so many guises and circumstances, we, the human readers, are brought face to face with the reality of our world. It is a world of pain, fear and enormous stress and cruelty. It is a world that will not change anytime soon into a human community of vegetarians or vegans. But at least books like this are being written for public reflection. From the Foreword by The Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG

Throughout the 19th century, animals were integrated into staged scenarios of confrontation, ranging from lion acts in small cages to large-scale re-enactments of war. Initially presenting a handful of exotic animals, travelling menageries grew to contain multiple species in their thousands. These 19th-century menageries entrenched beliefs about the human right to exploit nature through war-like practices against other animal species. Animal shows became a stimulus for antisocial behaviour as locals taunted animals, caused fights, and even turned into violent mobs. Human societal problems were difficult to separate from issues of cruelty to animals. Apart from reflecting human capacity for fighting and aggression, and the belief in human dominance over nature, these animal performances also echoed cultural fascination with conflict, war and colonial expansion, as the grand spectacles of imperial power reinforced state authority and enhanced public displays of nationhood and nationalistic evocations of colonial empires. Fighting Nature is an insightful analysis of the historical legacy of 19th-century colonialism, war, animal acquisition and transportation. This legacy of entrenched beliefs about the human right to exploit other animal species is yet to be defeated.'When does fighting end and theatre begin? In this fascinating study, Peta Tait - one of the most prominent authors in the Performance/Animal Studies intersection - explores animal acts with a particular focus on confrontation. The sites of the human-animal encounter range from theatres, circus, and war re-enactments investigating how the development of certain human fighting practices run in parallel with certain types of public exhibits of wild animals. Tait's account is historical, looking at animal acts - from touring menageries to theatrical performances - from the 1820s to the 1910s.'Lourdes Orozco, Lecturer in Theatre Studies, University of Leeds

Humans and nonhuman animals engage with each other in a multitude of fascinating ways. They have always done so, motivated by both necessity and choice. Yet, as human population numbers increase and our impact on the planet expands, this engagement takes on new meanings and requires new understanding.In Engaging with Animals: Interpretations of a Shared Existence experts in the field of human-animal studies investigate, from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, the ways in which humans and other animals interact. Grouped into three broad sections, the chapters focus on themes ranging from attitudes, ethics and interactions to history, art and literature, and finally animal welfare outcomes. While offering different interpretations of human-non-human interactions, they share a common goal in attempting to find pathways leading to a mutually beneficial and shared co-existence.

Obaysch: A Hippopotamus in Victorian London tells the remarkable story of Obaysch the hippopotamus, the first 'star' animal to be exhibited in the London Zoo. In 1850, a baby hippopotamus arrived in England, thought to be the first in Europe since the Roman Empire, and almost certainly the first in Britain since prehistoric times. Captured near an island in the White Nile, Obaysch was donated by the viceroy of Egypt in exchange for greyhounds and deerhounds. His arrival in London was greeted with a wave of 'hippomania', doubling the number of visitors to the Zoological Gardens almost overnight. Delving into the circumstances of Obaysch's capture and exhibition, John Simons investigates the phenomenon of 'star' animals in Victorian Britain against the backdrop of an expanding British Empire. He shows how the entangled aims of scientific exploration, commercial ambition, and imperial expansion shaped the treatment of exotic animals throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Along the way, he uncovers the strange and moving stories of Obaysch and the other hippos who joined him in Europe as the trade in zoo animals grew. 'A fascinating microscopic and telescopic look at the life of Victorian England's most famous animal. John Simons' richly exhaustive account of nineteenth-century hippomania engages with imperialism, Orientalism, progress, and the cultural history of Europe where Obaysch, captured from an island in the Nile River, had the misfortune to spend his life as a blockbuster attraction at the London Zoo. Poignant and empathetic, this account of an animal's appropriation and exploitation is one of those books that unfurls more about its moment in time than you could have imagined when you picked it up.' Professor Randy Malamud, Georgia State University

A Life for Animals is the story of a life devoted to a radical idea: that animals should be treated with dignity and respect. Christine Townend founded Animal Liberation Australia in 1976 after reading Peter Singer's book of the same name. Despite a largely indifferent and sometimes hostile public, she campaigned relentlessly to raise awareness of animal welfare and to build the movement's momentum in Australia. In 1990, weary of Australian politics, she accepted an invitation to visit a small, run-down animal shelter in Rajasthan. There she encountered shocking human and animal suffering - but also the extraordinary power of human and animal interaction. As she edged her way into the life of the shelter, she found herself unexpectedly attached: to the animals, to her colleagues, and to India.A Life for Animals is Townend's account of this journey. She records the successes and challenges of animal welfare work, the critical moments that have shaped her philosophy, and the profound personal and political consequences of sharing a life with animals.

Most members of the Stolen Generations had white fathers or grandfathers. Who were these white men? This book analyses the stories of white fathers, men who were positioned as key players in the plans to assimilate Aboriginal people by 'breeding out the colour'. The plan to 'breed out the colour' ascribed enormous power to white sperm and white paternity; to 'elevate', 'uplift' and disperse Aboriginality in whiteness, to blank out, to aid cultural forgetting. The policy was a cruel failure, not least because it conflated skin colour with culture and assumed that Aboriginal women and their children would acquiesce to produce 'future whites'. It also assumed that white men would comply as ready appendages, administering 'whiteness' through marriage or white sperm. This book attempts to put textual flesh on the bodies of these white fathers, and in doing so, builds on and complicates the view of white fathers in this history, and the histories of whiteness to which they are biopolitically related.

Before the birth of modern insecticides, farmers and gardeners used predatory and parasitic wasps and flies, insect-eating birds, lizards and toads as agents of biological control. In the late 19th century sugar cane scientists carried cane toads from Barbados to Puerto Rico, to Hawai'i and then Queensland to control pests. Toads were introduced to some 138 countries, and are now ranked among the world's most invasive species. Queensland's sugar scientists released the toad into cane fields in 1935. They were supported by cane growers, politicians, the nation's leading scientists, the premier of Queensland and the prime minister of Australia. Only a lone voice objected. In the following 70 years they spread as far as western NSW and Western Australia. This story is about good intentions, unintended consequences and of simple acts leading to catastrophic outcomes. It is about scientists so committed to solving a problem, serving their country, their leaders and the industry that employed them, that they are blinkered to adverse impacts. There are lessons to learn from the toad's tale. And as the tale shows, we still come perilously close to repeating the mistakes of the past.

Do depictions of crazy cat ladies obscure more sinister structural violence against animals hoarded in factory farms? Highlighting the frequent pathologization of animal lovers and animal rights activists, this book examines how the "madness" of our relationships with animals intersects with the "madness" of taking animals seriously. The essays collected in this volume argue that "animaladies" are expressive of political and psychological discontent, and the characterization of animal advocacy as mad or "crazy" distracts attention from broader social unease regarding human exploitation of animal life. While allusions to madness are both subtle and overt, they are also very often gendered, thought to be overly sentimental with an added sense that emotions are being directed at the wrong species. Animaladies are obstacles for the political uptake of interest in animal issues-as the intersections between this volume and established feminist scholarship show, the fear of being labeled unreasonable or mad still has political currency.

Do depictions of crazy cat ladies obscure more sinister structural violence against animals hoarded in factory farms? Highlighting the frequent pathologization of animal lovers and animal rights activists, this book examines how the "madness" of our relationships with animals intersects with the "madness" of taking animals seriously. The essays collected in this volume argue that "animaladies" are expressive of political and psychological discontent, and the characterization of animal advocacy as mad or "crazy" distracts attention from broader social unease regarding human exploitation of animal life. While allusions to madness are both subtle and overt, they are also very often gendered, thought to be overly sentimental with an added sense that emotions are being directed at the wrong species. Animaladies are obstacles for the political uptake of interest in animal issues-as the intersections between this volume and established feminist scholarship show, the fear of being labeled unreasonable or mad still has political currency.