PSY3HAR Report: Psychology of Human-Animal Relationships, Australia

This report delves into the psychology of human-animal relationships, specifically examining the impact of Indigenous hunting practices in Australia. It explores how traditional hunting, particularly by Aboriginal communities like the Martu, influences ecosystems, including fire regimes and vegetation patterns. The report analyzes the role of hunting fires in shaping biodiversity, supporting kangaroo populations, and maintaining ecosystem diversity. It discusses the importance of these practices for the conservation of species and habitats, emphasizing the need to support Indigenous hunting rights. The report also examines the impact of hunting on food webs and the broader implications for managing ecosystems, highlighting the value of traditional ecological knowledge in addressing environmental challenges. References include various studies from journals like the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B and Ecology and Society.

Running head: PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN-ANIMAL RELATIONSHIPS
PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN-ANIMAL RELATIONSHIPS
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:
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

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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

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Australian Indigenous Hunting Importance in Food Webs
Palaeoecological reconstructions we will interrelated changes to fire regimes vegetation
process along with food networks after the human promoted extinction of large and medium size
animals in several regions of Australian Indigenous habitation. These studies have claimed that
large and medium sized animals created arrangements of both open as well as closed vegetation.
These evidences have led Bowman et al. (2016) to claim that whilst humans have caused their
expansion these arrangements of hunting have been stopped because of the large accumulation of
biomass which triggered severe fires. Australian Aboriginals traditional small hunting fire has
been positively and negatively influencing range of environmental processes with standard fire
regimes related to nutrient cycling, plant renewal, and flora and soil development. It is important
to note that Australian Indigenous communities have been shaping pirate diversity both directly
by efficiently manipulating the growth severity occurrence and extent of hunting fires and further
by influencing the prosperity and distribution of various trophic guilds through their hunting
practices (Austin et al., 2018). Bowman et al. (2016) have highlighted several evidences which
reveal that the traditional hunting activity of Australian Indigenous communities has been
significantly promoting biodiversity of the region. For instance heuristic simulation modeling
exercise has drawn comparison between arrangements of several small hunting fires with
arrangements of few large hunting fires thus revealing that finer grained mosaic tends to produce
considerably more patches of long unburnt habitation. Such a long unburnt habitat offers refugia
for fire sensitive plants and medium sized animals across the landscape such as the fire sensitive
obligate seeding tree which survives in the highly fire prone Australian tropical Savanna region
under the supervision of the Gunei people (Clarke & Jones, 2018).

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Studies of Bowman et al. (2016) have noted that the particular group of Australian
Aborigines known as Gunei mainly used fire for their hunting purposes which indirectly profit
several living species. On the other hand there patch burning on drainage lines during severely
dry season has been specifically designed in order to develop local abundance of kangaroos.
Furthermore it has been noted that Aboriginal traditional hunting practice have been seen as an
effective outcome of the fine grained pyrodiversity which has combined with human predation of
feral cats and better the habitation for major harvested animal species. Drawing relevance to
these factors Armatas et al. (2016) have claimed that during the absence of traditional hunting
fires lightning ignited fires have been identified as effective means of magnitude after the season
of heavy downpour. At this juncture, authors have noted that the impact of inter annual climatic
conditions havebeen increased by the cessation of Australian Indigenous fire management in
majority ofareas. The consequential largest hunting fires combined with predators such as cats
and foxes which developed under wet La Nina conditions have shown a propensity to fluctuate
the extension cascades because of hyper tradition along with the severe loss of the unburnt
habitats which have been vital for provision of essential food resources and habitation during dry
El nino climatic conditions.
On the other hand, Ens, Walsh and Clarke (2017) have claimed that even though declined
fire rate of frequency along with elevated degree of considerably more unburnt vegetation have
enhanced the condition of the species living in those regions. However the stoppage of aboriginal
huntingpractices has also been considered to be disadvantageous for trees and fruit consuming
animals. Thus, it can be noted that definition hunting practices of Indigenous communities in
Australia have been efficiently supporting the management interventions related to burning in the
untimely dry climatic conditions when there has been a severe reduction of fuel moistures which

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have limited the special extent as well as intensity of fires (Zeanah et al., 2015). Thus it is
important to mention that supporting Indigenous tradition hunting practices will undoubtedly
reframe and open significant revenues of managing habitation. The practice of Indigenous
hunting must be considered as an effective modulator of trophic interactions and biodiversity and
conservation which further aims to improve the degraded habitats (Armatas et al., 2016).
Most significantly the traditional hunting practice of Australian Indigenous communities
has highlighted the importance of this practice in the web of interactions with fire and further
restores vegetation mosaics. However restoration of degraded ecosystems will require a
consistent careful supervision of fire regimes in order to avoid the extensions of this practice
which have taken place in the distant past.

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References
Armatas, C. A., Venn, T. J., McBride, B. B., Watson, A. E., & Carver, S. J. (2016).
Opportunities to utilize traditional phenological knowledge to support adaptive
management of social-ecological systems vulnerable to changes in climate and fire
regimes. Ecology and Society, 21(1).
Austin, B. J., Robinson, C. J., Fitzsimons, J. A., Sandford, M., Ens, E. J., Macdonald, J.
M., ... & Kennett, R. (2018). Integrated Measures of Indigenous Land and Sea
Management Effectiveness: Challenges and Opportunities for Improved
Conservation Partnerships in Australia. Conservation and Society, 16(3), 372-384.
Bowman, D. M., Perry, G. L., Higgins, S. I., Johnson, C. N., Fuhlendorf, S. D., &
Murphy, B. P. (2016). Pyrodiversity is the coupling of biodiversity and fire
regimes in food webs. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B:
Biological Sciences, 371(1696), 20150169.
Clarke, P. A., & Jones, D. S. (2018). Aboriginal culture and food-landscape relationships
in Australia: Indigenous knowledge for Country and landscape. In Routledge
Handbook of Landscape and Food (pp. 41-60). Routledge.
Ens, E., Walsh, F., & Clarke, P. A. (2017). Aboriginal people and Australia’s vegetation:
past and current interactions. Australian Vegetation, 89-112.
Zeanah, D. W., Codding, B. F., Bird, D. W., Bird, R. B., & Veth, P. M. (2015). Diesel
and damper: Changes in seed use and mobility patterns following contact amongst

8PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN-ANIMAL RELATIONSHIPS
the Martu of Western Australia. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 39, 51-
62.

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Indigenous hunting practice helps kangaroos
The tradition of hunting practices among Australian indigenous communities has
been prevalent for over a century. Comprehensive studies of several scholars have shown
several ecological gains Australia has been receiving through this tradition. As a result
there cannot be seen any factor which will support the breakdown of the hunting tradition
or challenge their rights to hunt. As per the opinion of Verchot (2014), the hunting
practices by specific Aboriginal groups in the Western part of Australia called Mardu has
been increasing the population of kangaroos by lucratively elevating the level of
ecosystem diversity and creating the massive landscape with vegetation at diverse stages
of growth. Kangaroos are mainly nourished on young shoots which tend to vegetate after
a fire and uses bushes in order to hide from view of their predators such as dingoes. The
practice of Mardus of burning small patches successfully create a full-grown vegetation
land which provides habitat and food resource for the kangaroos (Bird & Bird, 2017).
Verchot (2014) has specifically mentioned that unlike other communities who
alter their environments as per their benefits, the Martu communities primary purpose
rely on benefitting endemic species. Research conducted by several ecologists claim that
the fire practice of the Australian indigenous communities has been considered to be
highly beneficial for maintaining ecosystem diversity especially the grassland which tend
to lose moisture due to severe untimely dry season. Although there has been certain level
of apprehension regarding the damage on other species which can be caused by the
hunting practices, there have been adequate evidences of the effectiveness of hunting

10PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN-ANIMAL RELATIONSHIPS
practices. Bird and Bird (2017) have cited the example of several other animals like
monitor lizards, hares and possums which have been receiving a land for their existence.
According to Verchot (2014) the use of small hunting fires has been considered as a
double-edged mechanism for successfully preserving ecosystem diversity.
Studies of Zeanah et al. (2015) have mentioned that there has been a considerable
increase in the population of Kangaroos specifically in the regions where Australian
Indigenous communities practice their fire regimes. Although there are significant
amount of debate and discussion in Australia regarding the frequency of burning the
Savannah environment, the beneficial activities Indigenous communities have been doing
for animals and nature must be taken into consideration.
As the Indigenous communities in Australia serve a highly diseases role in
conservation of biodiversity and efficiently sustaining a diverse environment for
successful habitation the traditional hunting rights of the aboriginal population in
Australia must be supported for the welfare of the country.

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References
Bird, R. B., & Bird, D. W. (2017). Martu children’s hunting strategies in the Western
Desert, Australia. In Hunter-gatherer childhoods (pp. 129-146). Routledge.
Verchot, M. (2014). Aboriginal hunting practice helps kangaroos. Retrieved from
https://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/aboriginal-hunting-practice-helps-
kangaroos.html
Zeanah, D. W., Codding, B. F., Bird, D. W., Bird, R. B., & Veth, P. M. (2015). Diesel
and damper: Changes in seed use and mobility patterns following contact amongst
the Martu of Western Australia. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 39, 51-
62.