Book Chapter
‘Bunyips, battues and bears’: wildlife portrayed in the popular press, Victoria 1839-1948
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Published:2004
Citation
Stephen M. Legg, 2004. "‘Bunyips, battues and bears’: wildlife portrayed in the popular press, Victoria 1839-1948", Conservation of Australia's Forest Fauna, Daniel Lunney
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A 110-year-long time-series of metropolitan newspapers is analyzed for its portrayal of wildlife, and nature more generally, in Victoria between 1839 and 1948. The research identified and categorized approximately 19,000 items (leaders, articles, letters, etc.) related to various aspects of natural history and nature conservation. Newspapers, and published indexes thereof, are examined to create an historical overview of the major themes, issues and trends, and to consider the potential for using these documentary sources for reconstructing past environments and the human impact on nature. Typical of the colonial experience elsewhere, the newspapers reveal a society preoccupied with the transformation of the natural environment until relatively late in the study period. This is despite a long and complex history of scientific interest and conservation concerns. It was generally not until long after the passing of the settlement frontier that indigenous wildlife became sufficiently valued for the emergence of coordinated and systematic campaigns for their preservation. Always a dynamic mix of foreign and domestic ideas, both popular and official conceptions of nature gradually challenged the widespread notion of the inferiority of Antipodean plants and animals. This attitudinal shift was shaped by, and in turn fostered, the increasing institutionalization of science, growing popularity of natural history, and expanding government support for conservation. It was also a response to a series of major environmental disturbances created by the settlers themselves, and partially the outcome of adaptation to what were initially very alien surroundings. An increasingly national and ecological vision, forged near the end of the century, became characteristic of the press coverage of nature after the Great War.
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