Koalas are pictured everywhere in Australia—on cleaning products, on boxes of chocolate, on sports team shirts. Yet the animals live only in pockets along the east coast.
They once inhabited the entire coastline. The koala population dropped after farmers cut down many of the forests where koalas lived, and hunters killed the animals for their fur.
By the early 1900s, “koalas were basically shot out of south Australia，”says ecologist Bill Ellis, who studies the relationships among living things and their environments.
I recently joined Ellis and his team in a forest on St Bees Island, 19 miles off the northeastern coast of Australia, with eight other volunteers.The island is a natural laboratory，yielding findings that may help protect koalas elsewhere on the continent.
The volunteers searched the island for koalas in the blue gum trees.When we found a koala, we gathered information about the trees in the area.
Blue gum is a species of the eucalyptus tree (桉树) in which the funny leaf eaters spend most of their time.Eucalyptus trees are native to Australia, and their leaves are the main food source for koalas.Although koalas can walk on the ground, they are better suited for life in the canopy, the high cover of branches and leaves in a forest.
What has Ellis' research told him so far？The population of St Bees seems to be healthy.Yet Ellis wonders whether the koalas might be heading for hard times.The island is overrun with wild goats, and Ellis thinks the goats are eating the small blue gum trees.
Without those trees, the koalas will run out of food in the future.Ellis hopes more research will help him understand how to protect the blue gum trees—and the koalas that depend on them.“I think that's what everyone is trying to do—to make a difference，” Ellis says.
语篇导读
本文为说明文。在澳大利亚，考拉的生存环境受到了各方面的影响，我们到底应该为它们的生存做些什么呢？
1．What can we know from the first paragraph?
A．Koalas'pictures can be found everywhere in the world.
B．Koalas in Australia like to eat chocolate.
C．Koalas live only in the east coast of Australia.
D．You can buy the pictures of koalas only in the east coast of Australia.
解析 C 细节理解题。根据第一段最后一句可知，考拉只生活在澳大利亚的东海岸，故选C项。
2．What's the work of the volunteers in Ellis' team?
A．To collect information about the trees that koalas depend on.
B．To prevent farmers from cutting down the forest.
C．To save the koalas injured by local hunters.
D．To study the living things and the environment in the forest.
解析 A 细节理解题。根据第五段可知，Ellis的团队志愿者的工作是收集考拉赖以生存的树的信息，故选A项。
3．What will Ellis most probably start to do next?
A．To keep the population of St Bees healthy.
B．To kill all the goats on the island.
C．To find some new foods for goats.
D．To protect blue gum trees for koalas.
解析 D 推理判断题。根据最后一段可知，Ellis接下来会保护蓝桉树，故选D项。
4．What's the purpose of writing this passage?
A．To call for people to concern about the life of koalas.
B．To record trip to Australia for watching koalas.
C．To present some basic knowledge of koala's life.
D．To introduce the ecosystem of wildlife in Australia.
解析 A 写作意图题。本文主要介绍了考拉在澳大利亚的生存状况，目的是呼吁人们关注考拉的生存，故选A项。
