Australia’s bushfire crisis has produced an outpouring of kindness and compassion. It has also brought the brutal realities climate change into sharp relief and may — with any luck — help set us on a path towards more meaningful sustainability. But the fires have also highlighted the inconsistences that underlie our treatment of animals. Once again it is clear that humans like some animals and dislike others, depending on how the animals serve us.

I live in one of Australia’s large cities, shielded from the vagaries of rural life. This summer my urban lifestyle also meant that I have been spared the first-hand devastation of the fires. Yet despite my personal sense of safety, I feel somewhat traumatised. I did not have a relaxing summer break and I will return to work more emotionally exhausted than when I started my long-anticipated Christmas holiday.

I am thankful that I do not know anyone who has been killed in the fires and, so far, only one person in my extended network has lost their home. Because I am so lucky — and because I have dedicated much of my career to studying how we treat nonhuman animals — as Australia’s bushfire emergency unfolds, I find my mind turning to the animals and all they have lost.

In 2011 I published a book called Animals, Equality and Democracy, in which I studied how we categorise animals for our own purpose. The book details the ways in which we show preferential treatment to some animals, while withholding privilege from others. This bias has no foundation in taxonomy. It is just another example of human self-interest.

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Australia’s bushfire emergency has been another large-scale exercise in animal categorisation. Let’s start with the winners.

Companion animals, particularly dogs, appear to have fared well during the emergency. That is not to suggest that no companion animals have been lost. I am sure that many cherished family members have suffered and died as a result of the fires. Certainly, many have been left homeless. But as an abstract category they appear to have done well. The reports I am hearing and seeing suggest that people overwhelmingly have been evacuated with their dogs. This is no small achievement. During Hurricane Katrina in the United States in 2005, people had to make the heartbreaking decision to stay and face the hurricane or be evacuated without their companion animals. In 2020, it seems that most people agreed that companion animals deserve to be saved along with the rest of the family.

Native Australian wildlife also appear to have done well. Their death, trauma and suffering has been immense. But as a category of animal that we care about, they are right up there. The images, the donations, the effort — if you are an animal who was here prior to colonisation we appear to care deeply about your wellbeing.

That’s it for the positive side of the ledger. Now to the animals we care little for.

Let’s start with stock. Being born as “livestock” is always a dangerous proposition. You are born to make money and often that profit is only realised once you are dead. During a fire emergency, you are no longer “livestock” — you are just “stock.” You are the things we fill our supermarket shelves with. You will not be shuttled to safety. Your image will not be used to solicit donations. You will become a “biohazard.” If you manage to survive, you will soon be killed anyway.

But at present in Australia, there are individuals with an even lowlier status than stock. We know these individuals are despicable because we name them as such. They are “pest” or “feral” animals. Many non-native animals such as camels and horses are currently being shot. They compete for water and so they must die.

At the moment, we are in crisis. Everything is difficult and decisions have to be made quickly and under duress. But it seems to me that these fires are just one indication that we have made some immense mistakes in the way we think about and treat the non-human world. But these fires are also an indication that we are yet to learn those lessons. While one pure-bred Labrador is airlifted to safety, another dog is poisoned to death in order to protect the stock who are given water privileges ahead of feral donkeys or even kangaroos. What a mess.

My hope is that humans, non-humans and their homes, all get through these terrible times. But once we emerge out of this crisis, can we please think again about who we like, who we hate and why we hold those positions? Is it fair to kill individuals because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time? Is it fair to do that painfully or slowly? Post-fires, I think we owe it the animals to ask these difficult questions — not least because, in many cases, we are the ones who put the animals there in the first place.

Siobhan O’Sullivan is Senior Lecturer in the in the School of Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales. She is the author of Animals, Equality and Democracy.