Animal Genocide and its Aftermath

An exacting assessment of the bounty policies that facilitated the extinction of the Tasmanian Tiger and the Newfoundland Wolf, Animal Genocide and its Aftermath re-evaluates the legal, political, and social definition of animal killing, proposing it constitutes a form of genocide that requires a historical and cultural reckoning.

Nicholas Chare is Professor of Art History in the Department of Art History, Cinema and Audiovisual Studies at the Université de Montréal. He is the author of Sportswomen in Cinema: Film and the Frailty Myth (IB Tauris, 2015) and the co-author (with Dominic Williams) of Matters of Testimony: Interpreting the Scrolls of Auschwitz (Berghahn Books, 2016). He is also the co-editor (with Valérie Bienvenue) of the edited collection Animals, Plants and Afterimages: The Art and Science of Representing Extinction (Berghahn Books, 2022).

Nicholas Chare is Professor of Art History in the Department of Art History, Cinema and Audiovisual Studies at the Université de Montréal. He is the author of Sportswomen in Cinema: Film and the Frailty Myth (IB Tauris, 2015) and the co-author (with Dominic Williams) of Matters of Testimony: Interpreting the Scrolls of Auschwitz (Berghahn Books, 2016). He is also the co-editor (with Valérie Bienvenue) of the edited collection Animals, Plants and Afterimages: The Art and Science of Representing Extinction (Berghahn Books, 2022).

“Animal Genocide and its Aftermath presents a thoughtful and engaging account of how the killing and the extinction of nonhuman animals can and should be thought of as genocide, thus bringing into play more complex sets of historical, political, and legal concepts and experiences.” • Rick De Vos, Curtin University

“This book represents a brilliant piece of detailed, historical research which challenges and demands so much of the reader through destruction of the easy and comfortable acceptance of the human actions that result in animal extinction, together with an analysis of the different cultural representations of those actions that led to the genocide.” • Robert Paddle, Australian Catholic University