A recognition apparatus includes an image acquisition unit configured to acquire an image captured by a far-infrared camera and a recognition processing unit configured to set a target region in the image and determine whether an object in the target region is a human being or an animal based on a temperature variation in the target region. A recognition apparatus, a recognition method, and a recognition program that can correctly determine whether it is a human being or an animal that appears in an image even when the human being or the animal appears in the image showing his/her or its front or back can be provided.