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  3. The koala, cuddly symbol of a nation and one of the most beloved animals on the planet, is in crisis. Before Europeans settled A

The koala, cuddly symbol of a nation and one of the most beloved animals on the planet, is in crisis. Before Europeans settled A

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问题     The koala, cuddly symbol of a nation and one of the most beloved animals on the planet, is in crisis. Before Europeans settled Australia more than two centuries ago, about ten million koalas lived in a 1, 500-mile-long swath of the east coast eucalyptus forests. Hunted for their luxurious fur, koalas were brought to the edge of extinction in the southern half of their range. In the northern half, Queensland, a million were killed in 1919 alone. After the last open season in Queensland was held in 1927, only tens of thousands remained.
    Through the next half century their numbers slowly rebounded, in part due to efforts to relocate and recolonize them. Then urbanization began to take its loll. Habitat was lost, and diseases spread. With urbanization came the threat of dogs and highways. Since 1990, when about 430,000 koalas inhabited Australia, their numbers have dropped sharply. Because surveys are difficult, current population estimates vary widely— from a low of 44,000 by advocacy groups to a high of 300,000 by government agencies. More than a decade ago a survey of the Koala Coast, a 93,000-acre region in southeastern Queensland, estimated a koala population of 6,200; today there are believed to be around 2,000.
    "Koalas are getting caught in fences and dying, being killed by dogs, struck by vehicles, even dying simply because a homeowner cut down several eucalyptus trees in his backyard," says Deidre de Villiers, one of the chief koala researchers at the Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management. De Villiers insists that koalas and humans can coexist in urban environments, if developers get on board with koala-sensitive designs, such as lower speed limits for streets, green corridors for koala movement, and, most especially, preserving every precious eucalyptus tree. Unfortunately, koalas have another problem.
    "Disease is the other huge issue," says veterinarian Jon Hanger, 42, from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Queensland. Hanger has discovered that as much as half of Queensland’s koala population may be affected by the sexually transmitted disease chlamydiosis. In some wild koala populations more than 50 percent of the sexually mature females are infertile. The genesis of the disease is unknown, but it manifests itself as urogenital and ocular disease and is transmitted through mating and birthing, as well as fighting among males. Unlike in humans, chlamydiosis in koalas is often fatal.
    "Koala populations that used to be vibrant and sustainable are becoming extinct," says Hanger, who puts the blame squarely on the provincial government. "Queensland has failed miserably to do anything meaningful about the decline. The federal government needs to get involved and do it properly, listing the koala as vulnerable to extinction. " Such a designation might save the last remnants of critical koala habitat, he argues. Hanger is also part of a research team developing a chlamydia vaccine.
    A recent report presented to the Australian Senate made several recommendations to save the koalas, including listing the animals as threatened and vulnerable, funding a program to monitor koala populations, mapping their habitat, and managing federal and private lands to protect the koalas. Until such measures are taken, the efforts of grassroots koala emergency squads will continue to be essential.
Jon Hanger would be most likely to agree with which one of the following recommendations to save the koalas?
选项 A、Listing the animals as threatened and vulnerable
B、Funding a program to monitor koala populations
C、Mapping their habitat
D、Managing federal and private lands
答案A
解析 本题考查考生对第五、第六两段中关于乔恩·汉格尔的主张以及关于拯救考拉的建议。ABCD四个选项均是第六段关于近期一份呈交澳大利亚参议院的报告对于保护考拉作出的建议，考生需要做的是从这四个选项中选出乔恩·汉格尔最有可能同意的一个。乔恩·汉格尔在文章中第四段开始出现，第四段整段都是关于他对于衣原体病对考拉的威胁，第五段才开始讲到他关于保护考拉的观点，第五段第三句明确指出他认为联邦政府需要参与进来，恰当处理，把考拉列为濒危物种。第四句讲到他认为这种标示可能挽救主要栖息地里仅存的那些考拉。把考拉列为濒危物种也就是A选项所说的“把考拉列为易受威胁与侵害动物”，是同一个意思，因此A选项正确。
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