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Speaker A

Talking about unwelcome animals! I used to live in Alaska, in a very small town, and bears were our biggest problem, especially in winter, late autumn and spring. Sometimes it was quite scary. But you just need to know how to behave around them. Shouting really loudly, blowing a whistle or making a loud noise with anything you have, using a special bear spray, or just carrying a rifle, in case you go to the forest, can literally save your life.

Speaker B

Ever since I moved to Hawaii, unwelcome animals have stopped being a problem for me. There are no scary animals here like snakes or scorpions, and there are very few unpleasant insects. The only house intruders are enormous cockroaches that live in the wild here, and lovely gecko lizards that eat them. Having a wild gecko in the house is therefore considered a good thing – everybody loves them! They’re cute and you don’t have to worry about cockroaches – geckos eat them all!

Speaker C

My daughter is obsessed with insects. She loves everything that crawls: spiders, scorpions, caterpillars, worms, cockroaches – you name it. She would love to become a biologist and keeps asking me to keep some creepy-crawlies at home as pets. I’m terribly scared of things like that. I keep my house immaculately clean and make sure there are no spiders or cockroaches - or even ants! So, having them as pets seems ridiculous and terrifying to me!

Speaker D

Nowadays you hear a lot of news about people smuggling wild animals from the jungle into big cities and selling them as pets. These animals range from bugs and beetles to crocodiles and monkeys. Such pets cost an arm and a leg, everyone knows that it’s not allowed, bad for the animals, and dangerous for people, but some people still do it, which is horrible!

Speaker E

I think governments should take care of dangerous insects because they often transmit dangerous diseases. Historically, the Black Plague, also known as the Black Death, was spread by lice. Typhoid is also transmitted by lice, while malaria is carried by mosquitoes. Nowadays, we hear about another virus, chikungunya, which is spread by mosquitoes as well. With our level of science and medicine, I think these problems should be studied and taken care of by the government.

Speaker F

In many cities wild animals get used to people and stop being afraid of them. Sometimes, these animals are cute, like squirrels, sometimes they look a little more dangerous, like raccoons, opossums, or skunks. Kids enjoy feeding them. However, any wild animal can be dangerous. Even a cute-looking squirrel or fox in a park can carry rabies, a deadly disease. Feeding them and being bitten as a result, can end very badly. This is why we should teach children about it.

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