英語(yǔ)聽(tīng)力：自然百科 蛙類(lèi)拯救阿根廷？

In Argentina, the small city of San Luis is adopting the frog as its provincial hero. Frogs have been touted by some as the antidote to a dengue fever outbreak that's gripped Argentina. There have been over 20,000 cases recorded this year, including at least five deaths. Local Councilor Daniel Sosa says one frog can eat about 15,000 insects including mosquitoes in a single season. Mosquitoes are the carriers of the disease. He wants people to adopt the frog and forget the wildly used chemical controls.

What we want is a biological control, so the aero-toxins do not kill us. In the end, we will not be killed by the dengue, but we will actually be killed the aero-toxins. We will be killed by aerosols, by the pesticides. So, we have to begin to look for biological mechanisms and the frog is one of them.

Sosa is giving them away, encouraging locals to put them in their gardens. While not everyone has been jumping at the prospect of taking one home, local residents have been receiving them with amused curiosity.

The truth is that I do not want to take one to my house. I am impressed. But, well, if it is a way to prevent it, what else can I do?

Everything serves and its cost is zero, because the repellents are really expensive and not everyone has the money to buy them.

According to a local newspaper, a farmer in a nearby village had the original idea. He was convinced the repopulation of the amphibians in the heavily forested area would provide a clean answer to the long-legged mosquito. He says that in contrast to the toxic methods wildly used to combat the mosquito, a frog is a friend to the health of people.

The frog is a form of defense. That's the first thing and secondly in my opinion, if I may say, all this chemical stuff and all that is a waste of place, because you know why, because when the insect gets the scent, it goes away from where there is the defense, and the mosquito is no more there. Only when he is a top, or is really caught with the spread, but other than that it doesn't provide anything. He's gone and keeps going. Do you get me? And everything I believe is all this chemical combination does nothing good for the health of the people as it contaminates the air.

A newer strain of the disease appears resistant to the chemical controls, and theamphibian population continues to decline. Despite the region having large numbers of frogs in the past, today there are very few as a consequence of changes in the natural habitat and years offumigation. Some say the increased air travel as well as Argentina's recent agricultural expansions have played a role in the epidemic. Land clearing for food production has disrupted large parts of the country's ecological balance. Despite the enthusiasm for biological controls, there are some words of caution.

In accordance with the autonomous population here, it must not be misunderstood that we do not try to introduce species that are not natural to our region, because we have to take care with a representative number in each region, and we have to study them previously, because it just might be that they occupy the nests of the native species and with that we would produce a real ecological crisis.

Whether frog heroes or pawns in a misguided plan, the amphibian residents of San Luis have been truly thrown into the spotlight.