The environmental ravages of the 2019–2020 Black Summer have reignited historical debates surrounding the management of kangaroos—a native species that has been classified as an overabundant “pest” since the early days of settler-colonization and that occupies an ambiguous position within Australian social, ecological, and economic imaginaries. This article traces continuities within these historical debates in the era of climate change to argue for the importance of reckoning with colonial ideologies and imaginaries that have been, and remain, instrumental to the framing of kangaroos as both problematic vermin and exploitable commodity.
