Stage 3 have been working on our ability to write persuasive and engaging texts. Our Big Write topic this week was about Feral animals in Australia because we are reading the book "The Rabbits" by John Marsden and Shaun Tan.

These 4 examples were chosen by students. They are works in progress. They have bold printed the vocabulary, connectives, openers and punctuation.

Josie Watts

Big Write: Feral Animals - Wild Pigs

Introduction: Feral pigs first arrived in Australia with the First Fleet from Europe in 1788 therefore they are an introduced species in Australia. Imported as livestock, pigs soon escaped and established wild populations.

Disease Transmission: Feral pigs spread dastardly diseases. An infected pig carries a disease known as brucellosis. They spread it when they have a blood filled wound and because they are infected the blood carries brucellosis and when people get in contact with these animals they often get the disease.

Habitat Destruction: Feral pigs often dig up or trample the ground to find grubs or food but the best place to find them (grubs,worms) is near or under crops or good pasture paddocks. So when these feral swines excavate these lands it leaves some very unhappy farmers. Not to mention when they dig the ground up they ruin homes for other native plants and animals.

Livestock Damage: These cantankerous wild animals maul 40% of Australia's newborn lambs. They also love to prey on newly born calves as these newborns are an easy target.

Conclusion: These highly intelligent pigs have outsmarted trapping since pig traps have become more popular for these pests therefore people have started shooting from the air or ground,poisoning and pigging to try and rid these annoying pests but even they’re adapting to that as well. Hopefully, the next big idea for these pigs helps decrease these overpopulating invaders.

Andy Watson

Foxes The Feral Animal

There are many feral animals in Australia including pigs, rabbits, brumbies, cats and a wide range of so many more. But the main one that I am talking about is going to be the red fox. It has been living in Australia for about two hundred years.

Foxes are a real big pain for farmers to have to deal with because they will attack your chickens. But the thing they love to go for in winter is lambs when the u’s (ewes) are lambing. Farmers will have to be out with the spotlight every night shooting to try and reduce the number of foxes. They are a disgrace from what damage they cause. Once the lambs are at a reasonable size they could have left the farmers speechless after how much they have lost from the bad laming season that they have had.

This specific type of fox is the European red fox that was brought to Australia in the 1800’s. This was a very silly idea for when they brought them over here. They have caused so much inefficiency to farmers. Wild dogs are very similar to a fox but a fox has the urge to want to hunt at night. In other countries people actually have the red fox as their pet and treat it like a normal dog. But deep down it is still the animal that leaves a horrible effect for farmers. Foxes are crucially threatening biodiversity by killing wildlife. This came from the NSW environment and heritage claims.

These days when you go overseas to a different country you have to go through a thing called customs. They check that you don’t have any little worms or little eggs that you have on your shoes that another country does not have. Because if you gave it to that country it would live and breed there. But back when the fox was brought over it was a little bit different then.

This was the worst idea for people to bring the European red fox over to Australia from a different country in the eighteen hundreds. The bad idea of someone has left people around Australia devastated. Selling sheep and lambs is farmers' jobs so foxes have left farmers in severe financial problems.

Flows perfectly
Great vocab
The heading was a bit big

Indie Lawson

The brumby-An Invasive Species

By Indie Lawson

Animals are everywhere here. In Australia we are home to many different species of animal. However some of our land and native animals are threatened by all sorts of feral animals including the brumby.

Brumbies can make the land we live on miserable. They can wreck the ground because of them needing to run a lot. Furthermore they do this from an immense amount of running on the same bit of land that begins to flatten or where (wear) down the soil in the ground making it troublesome for plants to grow. That is something we despise on farms or national parks.

Additionally Brumbies can make it even more challenging to grow things in the land. Brumbies can spread weed far and wide as they run. This horrific deed is unintended but it can infectate with weeds or poisonous plants that get caught on them when they run then fall off them. This can be very jepredes for pets or animals.

Moreover the brumbies are one of the rulers in nature because of their tremendous size and strength. In addition they don’t get attacked by any natural predators, they just roam freely and every animal knows of their plentiful strength. They do not decrease but instead their population grows.

In conclusion, brumbies are extremely dangerous and it is urgent that we do something about it. They spread weeds, tear up the ground and cause erosion. Nevertheless they are some of the most beautiful creatures so we should not shoot them but we should tame them. No brumby deserves to be murdered. We should have them taken care of and be given an owner because that can stop all their problems.

Matt Pietsch

Pig-Feral Animals

Have you ever seen a feral pig before? They are very annoying and love corn, you can also shoot pigs or use a dog to grab the pig and then you can get a knife and stab them in the armpit.

There are lots of pigs in Australia, around a whopping 23.5 million pigs and thankfully if you live in the West of Australia you will not get pigs. If you live in Queensland or New South Wales you will get pigs.

Pigs hate dry and slottring (sweltering) hot days, but they love the water and shade, so they mostly will stick around water, they only go about no longer from water than 2 KMS. Because they like water they are not found in dry places like Darwin or Alice Springs.

Did you know that pigs actually weren't native animals to Australia that's why they are called feral. Pigs were transported to Australia by the 19th century settler by dangerous boats.

Pigs are the best but sometimes they can be a bit annoying but they are fun to go chase around and are tremendous to eat.

MaST Project