The Giant Panda Needs your Help to Survive

You are going top listen to the text about Giant Panda. Before listening read the passage to learn some information.

LISTENING

The British and their Treatment and Attitudes to Animals

Read the text.

Discuss the questions with your partner before you start reading the article.

READING

Do you know any organizations that prevent cruelty to animals?

What do you think their main activities are?

Would you like to be the member of such an organization? Why?

There are six and a half million dogs and six to eight million cats in Britain. This means that approximately one in ten people own a dog or a cat. Every year the British spend over 1 ½ billion pounds on pet food such as tinned dog food. They also support over 380 charities and societies which aim to protect animals. These include donkey sanctuaries, horses rest homes and dog and cat sanctuaries. The RSPCA (The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to animals) is the largest animal welfare society in Britain. It provides practical help to animals in homes, hospitals and clinics. However it also campaigns against animal cruelty. It has over 250 inspectors who make sure nobody breaks the laws which protect animals.

Each year, the RSPCA receives more money than the NSPCC (The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children). The Bransby Home of Rest for Horses looks after about 100rescued horses, ponies and donkeys. The International Fund of Animal Welfare (IFAW) campaigns to stop cruelty in different parts of the world. The Animal Liberation Front works for empty cages, not better cages. It is ready to use violence and sometimes attacks people and places which do experiments on animals. Lynx works against the fur trade.

However there are still 250 000 homeless dogs in Britain. People still go fox hunting and the sport of dog fighting is coming back.

1. Answer the questions.

1. Do you think the British are a nation of animal lovers? Why? Why not?
2. Do you think any of the charities mentioned above are good causes?
3. Would you give money to any of these groups?
4. What would you do if you were a member of these organizations?
5. (E.g. If I were a member of the WWF I would stop selling products made from animals..)
6. What do you think of sports like fox hunting and dog fighting?
7. Are there any similar sports in your country? Do you think these sports should be banned?

Once every eighty to a hundred years the bamboo forests in China’s Sichuan Province burst into flowers and then die off. And that’s bad news for the Giant Panda, which depends for its survival on huge amounts of bamboo. But that’s just one of the problems facing the Panda.

To ensure that it has a future it is vital to preserve the complex eco-system in which it lives, to carry out research into its dietary needs and investigate possible alternatives, discover the reasons for its low reproduction rate, to study the problem of internal parasites- all these factors and many more threaten its survival.

Destruction of the environment, killing of animals for their skins or food, are just some of the problems that animals face. The number of animals that risk becoming extinct is increasing every day.

2.Now look at the article’s headline and guess whether these sentences are true (T) or false (F).

a	China’s road development is putting giant pandas in danger.	T / F
b	In China’s Gansu province, 50 pandas were run over by trucks.
c	Conservationists want to build special panda crossings on roads.	T / F
d	A group of less than 50 pandas may automatically become extinct.	T / F

Дата добавления: 2014-11-18