Animals can tell us a lot about ourselves. The way we love them as pets, eat them for dinner, make them symbols of the nation or shun them as invaders and pests illuminates much about our society and culture. Animal Nation traces the complex relationships between animals and humans in Australia. It starts with the colonial period – when unfamiliar native animals were hunted almost to extinction and replaced with preferred species – and brings us full circle to the present when native species are protected above all others.