Indigenous Hunting Practice Helps Kangaroos

Running head: PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN-ANIMAL RELATIONSHIPS
PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN-ANIMAL RELATIONSHIPS
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Aboriginal Australian community have shaped their land through traditional hunting-420 words
Australian Indigenous Hunting Importance in Food Webs- 720 words
Indigenous hunting practice helps kangaroos- 423 words

1PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN-ANIMAL RELATIONSHIPS
Aboriginal Australian community have shaped their land through traditional hunting
Past few decades have been witnessing a significant disappearance of medium sized
mammals from the cultural region of Central Australia identified as a Western desert. Increasing
number of animals such as rat Kangaroo, bettong or the brush tailed possum have been
decreasing especially after the existence of humans in that region. Such a mystified
disappearance has led many people think of the Aboriginals who have been traditionally
associated with their hunting rights. Drawing relevance to this situation, Klein (2019) has shed
light to belief of the Martus who strongly emphasize on the importance of their living to preserve
the lives of these medium sized animals in these lands. According to Bliege et al. (2016), the
increasing rate of global warming, deforestation has resulted to the significant loss of several
animals across the world. However, it is important to note that loss of animals from the earth has
led to a severe imbalance between animals and humans for which humans have been considered
to be the real offenders. On the side, Klein has refuted such an allegation and claimed that the
way Australian Indigenous traditional rights have been successfully shaping the land in which
they live which signifies that a combined existence of humans and animals. The Martu after
resuming their hunting rights during 1980’s had strengthened the importance of small hunting
fires for preserving wild animals (Klein, 2019). This concept however faded away when the
Martu left in 1960’s following the severe nuclear testing initiated by British and Australian
governments.
Moreover, Bird and Nimmo (2018) have given similar views like Klein highlighting the
vital role of hunting fires in shaping the inconsistent arrangement of diverse vegetation across the
region. Reports of Klein (2019) have revealed that increasing rate of Martu’s traditional hunting
have expanded the area for wild animals to live and obtain food as well as water resource. With

2PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN-ANIMAL RELATIONSHIPS
Martu’s hunting activities huge areas of lands have been cultivated with various types of
vegetation thus making Western desert a land full of vegetation and habitat for both animals and
humans. Although in recent times, Martu have adopted certain routines of Australians their
inclination towards traditional hunting has been aiding biodiversity conservation. Furthermore, it
is important to note that such a resourceful traditional practice of hunting by the Australian
Indigenous have expanded to other regions of the world thus facilitating government agencies to
successfully manage it (Bliege et al., 2016).
Thus, Australian should support hunting rights of Indigenous to preserve their own land
and habitat and further care for its ecosystems as well as species.

3PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN-ANIMAL RELATIONSHIPS
References
Bird, R. B., & Nimmo, D. (2018). Restore the lost ecological functions of people. Nature
ecology & evolution, 2(7), 1050.
Bliege Bird, R., Bird, D. W., & Codding, B. F. (2016). People, El Niño southern oscillation and
fire in Australia: fire regimes and climate controls in hummock grasslands. Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 371(1696), 20150343.
Klein, J. (2019). Aboriginal Hunters’ Fires Help Restore an Australian Desert. Retrieved from
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/08/science/australia-aboriginal-fires-martu.html