In this edited volume, leading and emerging scholars investigate for the first time the ways in which the size of an animal population impacts how they are viewed by humans and, conversely, how human perceptions of populations impact on animals.

1. Why count animals? Nancy Cushing and Jodi Frawley Part I Excess The man from Menindie - D.H. Souter 2. Cane toads as sport: conservation practice and animal ethics at odds Libby Robin 3. Taking locust country Andrea Gaynor 4. On the ant frontier: ontological conflict with Iridomyrmex humilis in post-war Sydney Adam Gall 5. A swarm of sheep: colonizing the Esperance bioregion Nicole Chalmer Part II Abundance Life hath its charms 6. Optimism unlimited: prospects for the pearl-shell, bêche-de-mer and trochus industries on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, 1860-1940 Rohan Lloyd 7. Swamplands: human-animal relationships in place Emily O'Gorman 8. 'Pain for Animals. Profit for People': the campaign against live sheep exports' Gonzalo Villanueva Part III Equilibrium The Ento(M)-uscian - Emma Carmody 9. "Cunning, intractable, destructive animals": pigs as co-colonisers in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, 1840-1860 Nancy Cushing 10. Wine worlds are animal worlds, too: native Australian animal vine feeders and interspecies relations in the ecologies that host vineyards Julie McIntyre 11. Defending nature: Animals and militarised landscapes in Australia Ben Wilkie Part IV Scarcity Homecoming (Alpine Strata) - Emma Carmody 12. A slow catastrophe? Fishing for sport and commerce in colonial Victoria David Harris 13. The palatability of pests: redfin in the Murray-Darling Basin Jodi Frawley Part V Extinction 'Tis the last fly of summer 14. After none: memorialising animal species extinction through monuments Dolly Jørgensen