Colonial wilding: Cattle, Kangaroo and Gumbakuluk

From First Fleet cattle to colonial wilding: a fascinating lecture on history, Country, and environmental legacies. In 1788, a small herd of cattle trafficked from the Cape Colony (South Africa) with the First Fleet escaped and was lost to the colony at Warrane/Sydney. Years later, they were rediscovered by colonists, now living in large wild herds in an area of Country that was then re-named ‘Cowpastures’, with the Indigenous owners of that Country then re-named the “Cowpastures Tribe”. The story of escaping and proliferating wild cattle has been described by Grace Karskens as a ‘white legend’, its circulation tied to the naturalisation of a wild Australian pastoralism, which now spreads across more than half the continent. In this talk, Professor Fiona Probyn-Rapsey will discuss some of the counter-readings of this legend as analysed by Lynette Russell and her in their larger project on the cultural impacts of introduced animals. Their focus includes thinking about these cattle as gumbakuluk (a Dharuk/Gundungurra word for ‘horned cattle’), speculating on how Indigenous people encountered the cattle, taking their desire for escape seriously, and also thinking about what all this might tell us about the environmental legacies of colonial wilding on Country. This will be an opportunity to discuss the accompanying documentary film both researchers intend to make about this project, and view a short snippet of it. Professor Fiona Probyn-Rapsey is a Research Fellow in the School of Philosophy, History and Indigenous Studies at Monash University. She has held senior academic leadership roles as Head of School and NTEU Branch President at the University of Wollongong, where she was based for 9 years, and was previously at the University of Sydney in Gender and Cultural Studies. With Professor Lynette Russell, she has secured major ARC funding for projects examining the cultural impacts of introduced animals. She is the author of Made to Matter (2013), co-editor of Animaladies (2018), Animal Death (2013) and Animals in the Anthropocene (2015). Her publications appear in leading journals such as Environment and History, Australian Feminist Studies, and Environment and Planning E. Fiona has also directed and produced 2 short films, Weathering (2026) and Bloodwork: The Animal Art of Yvette Watt (2026). Since 2025, Fiona has appeared 3 times in Parliamentary inquiries into Higher Education in Australia and also a Four Corners episode (ABC, March 2026) on consultancies and higher education restructures. Fiona is currently a Visiting Fellow in the School of Sociology, College of Arts and Social Sciences at the ANU. Image: View upon the Nepean River at the Cow Pastures, New South Wales, Engraving created by Joseph Lycett, approximately 1775-1828 - Catalogue of the National Library of Australia