墨尔本PTE素材库——Cut Road Deaths with Mountain Lions

墨尔本PTE素材库——Cut Road Deaths with Mountain Lions

中文批注

害怕被蜘蛛或者蛇咬死？别紧张，统计数据说明，每年由于和鹿撞上而导致的车祸死亡人数更高。如何降低野生动物和车辆相撞造成的车祸惨剧呢？这段Podcast就给出了科学家们提出的一个解决方法。

这是一段很好的Re-tell Lecture以及Summarize Spoken/Written Text的练习素材。大家请尝试在40秒内复述这段Podcast的内容，主要关注的问题就是，What is the solution to deer-vehicle collisions？What’s the controversy of this method？

澳大利亚语言学院整理的墨尔本PTE素材库，旨在帮助各位PTE考生整理一些可以用作PTE考试题型练习的素材，可以帮助大家提升dictation、re-tell lecture、Summarize  spoken text 等等题型的能力哦！PTE市面上的素材并不多，练习的题目也不多，所以AIL整理的这些PTE素材库，真的是帮助非常大的哦！

【Key Vocabulary】

mountain lion 美洲狮（cougar）

collision n. 碰撞，冲突

bounding n. 边界 v.跳跃

carnivore n. 食肉动物

restoration n. 恢复，复位

crunch v. 压碎

Socioeconomic adj.社会经济学的

recolonization n. 再度移民，再繁衍

reintroduce v. 再引入

predator n. 捕食者

primal adj. 原始的，主要的

ingrain v. 使…根深蒂固

Full Transcript

Cut Road Deaths with Mountain Lions

By Jason G. Goldman

Reintroducing mountain lions to the eastern U.S. could save human lives and reduce injuries by lowering deer populations and preventing car–deer collisions.

Are you afraid of sharks? What about snakes or spiders? Put those fears aside: because in the U.S. you’re far more likely to be killed or injured by a deer bounding across the road.

Bambi and his kind cause more 200 humans deaths each year, plus some 29,000 injuries, all because of 1.2 million collisions between vehicles and deer. Most incidents occur in the eastern U.S., where deer thrive without natural predators like wolves and mountain lions.

“That’s the region in the U.S. where deer-vehicle collisions are such a problem, and where it seems like an effective large carnivore restoration could make a really big difference.”

University of Washington wildlife biologist Laura Prugh. She thinks it would help to reintroduce predators like mountain lions, also known as cougars, pumas or panthers, to parts of their historic range from which they’ve been driven out.

Crunching the numbers, the researchers say that bringing the big cats back to the eastern U.S. would mean 22 percent fewer collisions between cars and deer over three decades. Each year would see five fewer human deaths, 680 fewer injuries and a savings of some $50 million. [Sophie L. Gilbert et al., Socioeconomic benefits of large carnivore recolonization through reduced wildlife-vehicle collisions, in Conservation Letters]

“Cougars have shown that they can coexist in close proximity with people, with very few conflicts, in a lot of areas out west.”

Still, some folks might be understandably nervous about this kind of plan. After all, reintroducing predators doesn’t come without risks to pets and to livestock, and very occasionally to people.

“Our fear of large carnivores is so primal and ingrained that I don’t think it’s possible to just completely override it with statistics…what I hope is that knowing that there actually can be some measurable benefits might make people a little more favorably inclined and maybe balance that fear a little bit.”

Indeed, the statistics show that cougars would prevent five times as many human deaths from deer-related accidents as they would cause by attacks. But it’ll be a tough sell: the press will cover cougar attacks, but a statistically prevented death does not make the news. Nevertheless, “If people in Hollywood can put up with having mountain lions around, I would hope that New Yorkers would be up for the challenge as well.”

(Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/cut-road-deaths-with-mountain-lions/)