Why do conservationists in Australia support the policy of killing cats?

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问题 Why do conservationists in Australia support the policy of killing cats?
In July 2015, the Australian government announced a "war on feral cats" with the intention of killing over two million felines by 2020. The threat abatement plan to enforce this policy includes a mix of shooting, trapping and a reputedly "humane" poison.
        Some conservationists in Australia are hailing this as an important step toward the rewilding of Australia’s outback, or the idea of restoring the continent’s biodiversity to its state prior to European contact. Momentum has also been building in the United States for similar action to protect many animals outdoor cats kill every year.
        In opposition are animal advocates including the British singer Morrissey who are appalled at the rhetoric of a war on cats and promote nonlethal methods of controlling the negative effects of cats as being more effective and humane.
        From a scientific perspective, there is little doubt that under particular geographic and ecological conditions, outdoor cats can threaten native species. This is especially true on oceanic islands whose wildlife evolved without cats and are consequently unadapted to feline predators. For example, when cats were introduced to Pacific islands by European colonists, their numbers grew until they frequently posed a threat to native wildlife.
        Some conservationists claim that cats are the single largest threat to biodiversity regardless of ecological context. One oft-cited study in Nature Communications claims that 1.4 to 3.7 billion birds and 6.9 to 20.7 billion small mammals are killed by cats every year in the United States alone. Yet some have pointed out that the scientific case for this claim is shaky at best.
        Why? Virtually every study of outdoor cats assumes that because cats in some habitats threaten biodiversity, they are a threat across all habitats everywhere. This is a projection from a small set of localized case studies to the world at large. In other words, a guesstimate.

选项 A、The policy is set to be both effective and humane.
B、They think it improper to build friendship with Europe.
C、The United States has made huge progress regarding a similar policy.
D、It can alleviate the threat of extinction of species caused by wild cats.

答案D

解析 因果关系的判断。根据原文“Some conservationists in Australia are hailing this as an important step toward the rewilding of Australia’s outback, or the idea of restoring the continent’s biodiversity…”可知,澳大利亚的生态环境保护者把该政策作为还原澳大利亚内陆地区的生态和生物多样性的重要措施。选项A的关键词“effective and humane”出现在动物保护拥护者的观点中,其表示应寻求比这项政策更有效且人性的方法,故选项A错误。原文中提到“to its state prior to European contact”,指的是恢复欧洲物种入侵之前的生态情况,而不是不该与欧洲建立友好合作关系,故选项B错误。原文“Momentum has also been building in the United States for similar action…”表示美国也要有相似的政策,但并非已经卓有成效,也不是澳大利亚出台该政策的原因,故选项C错误。选项D与原文相符,故答案为选项D。
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