墨尔本PTE素材库——Penguin Protection Dogs

墨尔本PTE素材库——Penguin Protection Dogs

中文批注

这篇文章主要关于牧羊犬保护小企鹅的来龙去脉。澳大利亚维多利亚洲的middle island是神仙企鹅的栖息地，但狐狸的入侵让他们濒临灭绝。幸好附近的农夫灵机一动，让训练有素的农场牧羊犬保护企鹅，赶走狐狸。大家都说，狗狗是人类最好的朋友，对于神仙企鹅来讲，更是生死之交吧~

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！

这篇文章是比较适合同学们练习retell the lecture的听力练习。里面虽然生词不多，但内容却不少~大致来说说看练练看，大概能说出多少文章内容呢？

【Key vocabulary】

Handful adj. 一小把，这里指手掌大小的

Maremma dog n. 马雷马牧羊犬 （同学们可以做一个词汇补充，下次讲口语的时候可能用得上哦）

Stock protector 财产保护者

Natural ability 天性

Penguin colony 企鹅栖息地 （那么猴子栖息地，鹦鹉栖息地呢?）

Predate v. 捕食

Predator n 捕食者

White knight n. 提供帮助的人 （可不仅仅是白衣骑士的意思哦）

Transfer over 转移到…上

Full Transcript

They say dogs are man’s best friend, but on Middle Island in Victoria, dogs and penguins are even closer than that. Some specially trained Maremma dogs have the job of protecting local penguins from foxes there. We caught up with them as a new puppy recruit joined the team.

PETER ABBOTT, WARRNAMBOOL CITY COUNCIL: The first puppy has arrived. He’s a bit of a handful at the moment.

This new four-legged recruit has a very important job.

PHIL ROOT, DOG TRAINER: First time in the world they’ve used Maremma dogs to look after native species so we’re really lucky to be involved in that.

Yep, you heard right. This Maremma dog is here to protect native Australian animals.
In fact, he’s a penguin protection puppy! And his job will be to protect a colony of Little Penguins on Middle Island just off the southern coast of Victoria.

PETER ABBOTT: He’ll be living on the island, through the summer breeding season, looking after penguins. So the dogs are generally used in Australia as stock protectors, free range chickens and farms and those sorts of things. So our dogs and our program uses these dogs’ natural ability to protect things.

But hang on how come these poor little penguins need protecting? Well this movie about the story explains it pretty well.

ODDBALL FILM: In a remote part of the world, there’s a magical island where thousands of the littlest penguins all make their home. But foxes found the island. And in just a few short years there were hardly any penguins left.

Thankfully that was when this local chicken farmer Swampy Marsh, yep that’s his real name, came up with a brilliant idea to help.

SWAMPY MARSH, CHICKEN FARMER: Well, the short story is, the penguin colony was being predated on by foxes. I knew that these dogs would protect my chooks, and on other properties they protect sheep and goats as well. The thing we said was why not use a European guard dog to fight a European predator?

SWAMPY MARSH: All Maremmas have a very strong sense of territory in the same way that a wolf does. He’s saying to the fox ‘Go away, I’m here, this is my territory’.

So in 2006 these two white knights were brought in to begin guarding penguins on the island. And over the past 10 years sisters Eudy and Tula have done an amazing job. Before the program started, there were only 10 penguins left on Middle island. But by 2013 there were 180!

But these days Eudy and Tula are getting a little old for fox chasing. And that’s why this little guy is here. But it will take a lot of training to get him up to speed including starting work with some chickens!

PHIL ROOT: The famous story is that penguins are just chooks in dinner suits, so if we can train him to look after the chooks, low to the ground feathered variety, then it should be transferred over to the penguins.

It might not be the most obvious idea.

PETER ABBOTT: I think like anything involving penguins, dogs, people, islands, water, you’re never going to get it perfect.

But it may very well be the cutest way we’ve heard of to protect some very special native Aussie animals.

(source: http://www.abc.net.au/btn/story/s4412850.htm)