100 Protect the Turtles

名称：100 Protect the Turtles
内容简介：
晨读英语美文 真题阅读
[00:02.41]For hundreds of millions of years,
[00:04.87]turtles have struggled out of the sea
[00:07.44]to lay their eggs on sandy beaches,
[00:09.97]long before there were nature documentaries
[00:13.18]to celebrate them, or GPS satellites
[00:16.18]and marine biologists to track them,
[00:18.74]or volunteers to hand-carry the hatchlings
[00:22.66]down to the water's edge
[00:24.57]lest they become disoriented
[00:26.45]by headlights and crawl
[00:28.19]towards a motel parking lot instead.
[00:30.35]A formidable wall of bureaucracy
[00:33.65]has been erected to protect
[00:35.92]their prime nesting sites
[00:37.89]on the Atlantic coastlines.
[00:39.35]With all that attention paid to them,
[00:42.04]you'd think these creatures would
[00:44.14]at least have the gratitude not to go extinct.
[00:46.93]But Nature is indifferent to
[00:49.36]human notions of fairness,
[00:51.55]and a report by the Fish and Wildlife Service
[00:54.21]showed a worrisome drop in the populations
[00:57.20]of several species
[00:59.02]of North Atlantic sea turtles,
[01:00.87]notably loggerheads,
[01:02.79]which can grow to as much as 400 pounds.
[01:05.68]The South Florida nesting population,
[01:09.22]the largest, has declined by 50%
[01:11.26]in the last decade,
[01:13.90]according to Elizabeth Griffin,
[01:15.91]a marine biologist with
[01:17.86]the environmental group Oceana.
[01:19.63]The figures prompted Oceana
[01:22.78]to petition the government
[01:24.57]to upgrade the level of protection
[01:26.39]for the North Atlantic loggerheads
[01:28.53]from “threatened” to “endangered”—
[01:32.05]meaning they are in danger of disappearing
[01:34.77]without additional help.
[01:36.48]Which raises the obvious question:
[01:38.27]what else do these turtles
[01:41.36]want from us, anyway?
[01:43.09]It turns out, according to Griffin,
[01:45.83]that while we have done a good job
[01:48.19]of protecting the turtles for the weeks
[01:50.36]they spend on land
[01:51.44](as egg-laying females,
[01:53.62]as eggs and as hatchlings),
[01:56.36]we have neglected the years
[01:58.28]they spend in the ocean.
[01:59.62]“The threat is from commercial fishing,”
[02:02.47]says Griffin. Trawlers
[02:03.61](which drag large nets
[02:07.18]through the water and along the ocean floor)
[02:09.27]and longline fishers
[02:10.76](which can deploy thousands of hooks
[02:13.66]on lines that can stretch for miles)
[02:15.49]take a heavy toll on turtles.
[02:18.23]Of course, like every other
[02:21.10]environmental issue today,
[02:22.83]this is playing out against
[02:24.85]the background of global warming
[02:27.00]and human interference
[02:28.80]with natural ecosystems.
[02:30.36]The narrow strips of beach
[02:32.87]on which the turtles lay their eggs
[02:35.11]are being squeezed
[02:36.89]on one side by development
[02:38.22]and on the other by the threat
[02:40.27]of rising sea levels as the oceans warm.
[02:43.26]Ultimately we must get a handle
[02:46.75]on those issues as well,
[02:48.21]or a creature
[02:50.07]that outlived the dinosaurs
[02:51.41]will meet its end at the hands of humans,
[02:54.21]leaving our descendants
[02:56.50]to wonder how a creature
[02:58.35]so ugly could have won so much affection.