节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2012-01-05
难易度:Medium
关键字:outstanding, mammal, destruction, deplete, tusk, game
Hello, friends.
Welcome back.
Before the break, we started talking about Kruger National Park in South Africa.
We talked about a national park and what it means, especially in South Africa,
as a place for these incredibly wild animals.
We saw that there are all kinds of species there, of reptiles, birds and
mammals.
Well, join us as we continue talking about Kruger Park on line 10.
(Music).
Kruger National Park: It's Wild.
Hundreds of kinds of plants, both large and small, provide cover for them.
The park was established by South African Republic President Paul Kruger in 1898
to protect the wildlife from destruction.
Many people had come to the area to hunt animals for their horns, tusks and
skins.
Game populations were being depleted.
Kruger encouraged the government to set aside a protected area.
Each year around 950,000 people visit the park to enjoy the natural beauty of
Africa and hope to see the Big Five.
(Music).
There are all kinds of species in Kruger National Park, of different kinds of
animals: reptiles, birds, mammals.
But that's not all.
There are also plants.
That's right.
Hundreds of kinds of plants, both large and small, provide cover for these
animals.
That's right.
When you are an animal, a lot of these animals eat plants.
So they need the plants to feed off of as well as to take protection from the
harsh African sun.
That's right.
So these plants serve a purpose for the animals there, and some of them are also
good to see.
Many people visit the park to look at some very interesting plants.
That's right. You know, when we think about different countries and different
terrains,
and that's the way the land is, we, lot of times, imagine different plants.
Like in Asia, we imagine maybe bamboo as being something special.
In Africa, there are all kinds of interesting shaped trees.
Yes, there are.
You can find many different kinds of trees and plants in this park that can also
be found around Africa.
The park was established by South African Republic President Paul Kruger in 1898
to protect the wildlife from destruction.
So what does that mean?
Well, he built it as a protective area.
Of course, we know it is a national park.
So it's protecting them... uh, protecting these animals from destruction.
Yeah. And "destruction" means when something is completely destroyed.
It is not just a little bit broken or a small piece taken away.
It is when it is completely gone.
Everything would be ruined.
Now this President Paul Kruger - as we see the name Kruger there, it's named
after him - set it up to protect the animals.
Why was this a problem, Ryan?
Well, actually we see that many people had come to that area to hunt animals for
their horns, their tusks and their skins.
OK. So we know what a horn is.
Maybe we can think about the horn on a...
Rhinoceros, for example...
OK.
... on the first page. They have a large horn on the front of their face.
But what about tusks?
Well, a "tusk," I'm going to...
Have you imagined an elephant with those long tooth-like... horns almost; they
kind of look like horns that are like teeth as well.
They're very long, very sharp.
Yeah.
And few animals have them.
That's right, mostly we think of elephants.
Like you said, they come out the white horns like teeth on elephants.
And we call those "tusks." And many times hunters would want to kill elephants
just for the tusks.
Because the tusks are actually a very expensive material that really the animal
has to grow.
So they would kill it and just take the tusk, which means they're killing the
wildlife very quickly.
And it's making them go down in population.
We see the game populations were being depleted because of people hunting horns,
tusks and skins.
Yes. Now this area in Africa is very large.
But there were so many people hunting the game there that they started to be
depleted.
And of course, "game," we know, was referring to wild animals that are being
hunted.
That's right.
It is not about playing a game.
Well, though, you... some people do consider hunting a form of game, which is
why we call what they are hunting that.
So the game, the hunted animal populations were being depleted.
Yeah. That means they're being made smaller or could almost be gone completely.
If something is "depleted," that means it is completely gone.
But if something is being "depleted," that means it's being made smaller, being
taken away.
That's right. Taking one at a time can really hurt it.
Even... and that's not what was happening; they were taking hundreds at a time.
So Kruger encouraged the government to set aside a protected area.
Yeah. And it's a good thing.
Now we have Kruger National Park, and we can go and still see these animals.
There are still many animals that you can find there.
Each year around 950,000 people visit the park to enjoy the natural beauty of
Africa and hope to see the Big Five.
Now the Big Five you can actually find that one page 16 of your Studio
Classroom.
There are some more information on what the Big Five is.
Yes. It's exciting to see the Big Five.
We... we should not... let's not share, let's have them look it up.
You find for yourself what is the Big Five, and write to us and tell us would
you like to see the Big Five.
Write to us at Letters@StudioClassroom.com.
That's right.
Now I can already say with or without the Big Five, I would still want to visit
this park.
It still sounds beautiful.
That's right. You know, it says they get to see the natural beauty of Africa.
And I think that's a wonderful way of putting it.
Not only do you get to see the animals, including maybe the Big Five,
you also get to see the country, the flowers, the... all of the vegetation, the
plants around there.
Right. It's not just the animals that are preserved.
Everything in that national park is kept safe from human contamination and from
hunters.
So it's a wonderful place to go see what Africa might have been like.
Well, are you interested in visiting Kruger National Park?
I hope you are!
Join us tomorrow.
We'll tell you just what you can do and how to get there.
See you next time.
(Music).
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.
(Chinese).
And time really flies.
Make sure you come back tomorrow for more Language Tips.
Here's a little Big Five trivia you can impress your friends with:
The rhino's horns are made from the same stuff as our hair.
The elephant will die without the use of its trunk.
The leopard is secretive, solitary, and sleeps during the day.
The lion, with an average weight of 200 kilograms, can eat up to 25 percent of
its body weight in one sitting.
That's like me eating a 23-kilogram hamburger... something I hope to try
someday.
OK, everyone. Let's continue our African adventure in Kruger National Park
tomorrow.
Until then, I and everyone else here at Studio Classroom hope you have a great
day. Bye-bye.
(Music).