英語聽力：從南極到北極 8

Deer are frequent casulties of the harsh winter. And these leopards are not above scavenging from a corpse. African leopards could never survive here. But the Russian cats have thick fur to shied them from the cold. There are only 40 Amur leopards left in the wild. And that number is falling. Like so many creatures, the cats have been pushed to the very edge of extinction by hunting and the destruction of their habitat. The Amur leopard symbolizes the fragility of our natural heritage. The future of an entire species hangs on the survival of a tiny number of mothers like this one.

All animals, rare or common, ultimately depend for their energy on the sun. In Japan, the arrival of the cherry blossom announces the beginning of spring. The sun’s energy brings colour to the landscape. The earth, as it makes its annual journey around the sun, spins on a tilty axis. And it’s this tilt that creates the seasons.