四川 蔣建平

海洋被垃圾嚴(yán)重污染，大量海洋動物因此死去，惡劣的海洋環(huán)境給動物造成了嚴(yán)峻的生存挑戰(zhàn)。

298 難度 ★★★ 建議用時文章詞數(shù) 5分鐘

A ten-year-old sperm whale(抹 香 鯨） was found dead on a beach in Scotland. A necropsy (尸檢） revealed that nearly 100 kilograms of plastic and other trash had formed clumps(硬塊） in its digestive system. The tragedy quickly made headlines.Why would a top predator in the ocean eat gloves,rope, and plastic cups?

It's possible, says Savoca, that plastic trash sounds like food to toothed whales. These species hunt deep in the ocean, sometimes nearly 500 meters below the surface, where it's pitch black (漆黑）.They use echolocation (回聲定位） to hunt for food, typically squid (烏賊）.

By contrast, baleen whales (須鯨), including humpbacks and blue whales, have natural filters (過濾器） for their food. Baleen, the brush-like filter-feeding system they have in place of teeth, as well as their narrow throats, keeps them from swallowing anything much larger than the krill (磷蝦） that forms the basis of their diet. That could help explain why baleen whales are not ending up with plastic filled stomachs.

Fifty years ago, there was almost no plastic in the ocean. The lifespan of a large whale can be twice that long. In the lifetime of a single whale, we went from an ocean with no plastic to hundreds of thousands of tons of it. Plastic comes on top of other factors affecting life in the ocean-climate change,overfishing, shipping traffic, and noise pollution. “It's a real shame because their lives are challenging enough even without the additional pressure we put onto them,” says Savoca.

Reading Check

Choose the best answer for each question.

1. What does paragraph 2 mainly talk about?

A. Plastic smells like food to toothed whales.

B. Marine animals started to eat plastic decades ago.

C. Many toothed whales are found dead on beaches every year.

我們要著眼長遠(yuǎn)，從實現(xiàn)我黨的長期執(zhí)政的角度更加清醒地評估鄉(xiāng)村治理的價值，城口縣探索實施組織振興舉措、構(gòu)建鄉(xiāng)村治理體系具有很強的地域意義和實踐意義。搭建黨組織引領(lǐng)，各類集體經(jīng)濟(jì)組織和鄉(xiāng)村社會組織支撐的“三位一體”的村級組織架構(gòu)，對于邊遠(yuǎn)貧困區(qū)縣如何實現(xiàn)組織振興提供了一種工作思路，圍繞村級集體經(jīng)濟(jì)組織和農(nóng)村社會組織建設(shè)抓鄉(xiāng)村治理應(yīng)當(dāng)是抓黨建促脫貧攻堅、抓黨建促鄉(xiāng)村振興的重要突破口。

D. A new twist of conventional wisdom about marine animals' eating behavior.

2. What does the author want to emphasize in the last paragraph?

A. Whales have a longer lifespan than humans.

B. Plastic has a negative effect on climate change.

C. Great changes have taken place in the ocean in the past 50 years.

D. Plastic pollution has worsened already serious issues affecting marine life.

3. Which of the following would be another title for the text?

A. Different diets, different fates B. Silent killers in the ocean

C. Plastic trash in the ocean D. Saving sperm whales

Language Study

它為什么叫“抹香鯨”？ 它很香嗎？ 科普一下，要收藏哦！

Fun facts about sperm whales

Sperm whales 1. _________(name) after the spermaceti—a waxy substance 2. _________(use) in oil lamps and candles—found on their heads, 3. _________account for one-third of their body length.

Sperm whales are the largest of all toothed whales and can grow 4. ________a maximum length of 15.8 metres and 5. _________(weigh) of 40 metric tons, with males 6. _________(grow) much larger than females.

Female sperm whales form 7. ________(last) relationships with other females in their family and create social groups around these bonds. Males, on 8. ________other hand, leave their matriarchal groups between 4 and 21 years old 9. _________(join) “bachelor schools” before eventually leading solitary lives in their later years.

During the whaling era, which occurred between the 17th and 20th centuries, as many as 1,000,000 sperm whales were killed. Sperm whales are 10. _________（current） considered an endangered species.