A Melbourne researcher says eating feral animals could be a step towards a more sustainable Australian diet.

Dr Catie Gressier, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Melbourne, has studied the attitudes of Victorians and West Australians towards eating native and feral animals.

She said with a growing global population it was "not realistic" to think humanity could continue to consume farmed livestock at the current rate.

"We need to rethink our meat consumption," she told 774 ABC Melbourne's Hilary Harper.

Dr Gressier said for many people feral meat was a more palatable option than other alternative proteins, such as insects or laboratory-grown flesh.

She said animals such as goats, rabbits and carp were considered delicacies overseas but were pests in Australia.

'Loaded' language a barrier

Dr Gressier said the word used to describe an animal had a big impact on people's reactions to the idea of eating its meat.

"I think the language itself is so loaded ... feral has the implication of something that was once contained and has now gone wild," she said.

"In terms of meat it raises questions about things like hygiene.

"[The word] game, obviously, has much more positive connotations."

Dr Gressier says consumers can buy wild meat from specialist butchers. ( ABC News: Margaret Burin )

Dr Gressier said legislation had an impact on how different species were described and how available they were to consumers.

"State by state there's very different and very contested legislation around particular species," she said.

"Farmers can easily gain licences [to shoot] those species classed as pests.

"If they're classed as game, that's a different set of legislation that's more restrictive."

She said rabbit, in particular, had suffered from its association with the Great Depression.

"I think that stigma ... has had a very long resonance," she said.

Rise of the 'pestatarian'

Dr Gressier said the largest group of people who ate wild-harvested meat were those who hunted it.

"Deer hunting is huge, obviously. I think the figures are something like 28,000 licensed Victorian hunters at the minute," she said.

Some consumers were attracted to feral meat because it was lean and free of antibiotics, she added.

"There's a large contingent of very health-concerned people who are really interested in the properties of wild meat."

A much smaller number of people, she said, identified as pestatarians — someone who only eats the meat of animals which are environmental pests.

"They tend to be more in the minority, the people who are so ethically engaged with this issue that they will restrict their meat consumption just to feral species," Dr Gressier said.

She said consumers interested in eating feral meat could find it at specialist butchers and some farmers markets.