Kangaroos played an important role in the survival of Australia's indigenous peoples. The animal was hunted for tens of thousands of years, for both meat and skins, and when Europeans arrived in the late 18th century, they also depended on its meat for survival.
Although Aboriginal people kill and eat kangaroos as part of their traditional diet, there are strict cultural protocols about how these practices are carried out.
If Australians were to pick a national symbol the kangaroo would surely be it. Indigenous Australians have had the kangaroo as a totem, a source of food, furs, tools and ornaments, and as a subject of rock art for tens of thousands of years.
Still long time favorites of the Aboriginal people in Central Australia. Kangaroo is hunted in the modern way and cooked in the traditional way of tossing it in the fire first to singe off the hair and then put in a hole and covered with hot coals to cook. The tail and feet are usually cut off before cooking.
Cooking kangaroo at home is much like cooking the perfect steak, as it is best served medium rare. That said, it's a fantastic centre to any meat dish, such as burgers, sausages, casseroles, and meatballs.
According to the Pastoralists' Association of West Darling, sustainable harvesting of kangaroos for human consumption will assist with population control and keep existing animals healthy. Eating kangaroo meat will keep the population healthy and the environment healthy.
It was always eaten by aboriginal Australians, for whom the succulent tail, roasted in a pitful of embers, is a particular delicacy. The early European settlers ate kangaroo out of necessity, and many eventually came to enjoy a red meat that didn't really taste so different from venison, hare or beef.
The Australian Aboriginals used the environment around them for generations, living off a diet high in protein, fibre, and micronutrients, and low in sugars. Much of the bush tucker eaten then is still available and eaten today.
One of the most well known traditional Aboriginal foods is the Australian witchetty grub, which is actually native to central Australia where the Watarrka region is located. The Witchetty grub remains a common snack or meal addition in Australia, and is high in protein and nutrition.
Platypuses were hunted for food by Aboriginal people by digging them from their burrows or spearing them while swimming (Robinson & Plomley 2008). The platypus' tail is rich in fats may have been particularly important in cold conditions.
Kangaroos and wallabies are marsupials that belong to a small group of animals called macropods. They are only found naturally in Australia and Papua New Guinea.
Stories of the koala are deeply woven into many different Aboriginal Songlines and Dreaming stories. The word 'koala' can be traced back to the Dharug language of the Greater Sydney region. The word 'gula' means 'no water', referring to the observation that koalas don't drink water. This has been anglicised to 'koala'.
The name "dingo" comes from the Dharug language used by the Indigenous Australians of the Sydney area.
Aboriginal people are familiar with Kinga (salt-water crocodiles) and their behaviors on the land. Large crocodiles are respected and left alone, while smaller crocodiles may be caught and eaten for food. Crocodile eggs are also a nutritious food source for Aboriginal people.
Overall, eating Kangaroo meat is more sustainable and better for the environment than most other meat consumption. As kangaroos are indigenous to the Australian environment they can get by on eating a variety of indigenous scrub and do not rely on the production of grain.
Snakes/Pythons
Snakes including pythons make up a number of reptiles that are hunted by Aboriginal people around Australia. Snake meat looks surprisingly appealing as the meat is very clean looking and the taste is surprising as well.
There is no one Aboriginal word that all Aborigines use for Australia; however, today they call Australia, ""Australia"" because that is what it is called today. There are more than 250 aboriginal tribes in Australia. Most of them didn't have a word for ""Australia""; they just named places around them.
Aboriginal food and diets before European settlement
The men hunted large animals like kangaroos and emus. Insects such as honey ants and wild bees provided honey that was and still is popular in remote areas—this was an important carbohydrate source.
Aboriginal people ate a large variety of plant foods such as fruits, nuts, roots, vegetables, grasses and seeds, as well as different meats such as kangaroos, 'porcupine'7, emus, possums, goannas, turtles, shellfish and fish.
Before white settlement, Koalas were hunted by Aboriginal Australians for food. They were also regarded as totems by some tribes. Widespread clearing of their forest habitat did not occur, and there was probably no threat to their survival as a species.
On the eve of British settlement/invasion, key foods of animal origin included kangaroo and wallaby, possum and wombat, muttonbird and penguins (both the flesh and the eggs) and various molluscs and crustacea.
In the past, Aboriginal people tapped the trees to allow the sap, resembling maple syrup, to collect in hollows in the bark or at the base of the tree. Ever-present yeast would ferment the liquid to an alcoholic, cider-like beverage that the local Aboriginal people referred to as Way-a-linah.
In 1974 the (then) three commercially shot kangaroo species were listed as threatened on the US Endangered Species Act. [1] The US Fish and Wildlife Service banned the importation of those species in the same year.
Kangaroo meat is sourced from the 4 main species of kangaroos that are harvested in the wild. Although most species of macropod are protected from non-Aboriginal hunting in Australia by law, a number of the large-sized species which exist in high numbers can be hunted by commercial hunters.
Koalas, like the platypus and echidna, are a protected native Australian animal, and harming or killing them could bring you a hefty fine or time in jail. So no, you can't eat koalas.