Shipping noise affects penguins

2023-02-21侯昌玮

疯狂英语·新读写 2023年1期

主题语境：动物保护篇幅：322词建议用时：6分钟

1Penguins in South Africa are being driven from their native environment because of noise from shipping activities.

2The African penguin lives on St.Croix Island off the east coast of South Africa.The animals are already endangered.But a new study has found that African penguins are leaving their natural environment to escape noisy ship refueling operations.The island once was the world's largest bird breeding ground.But the population of African penguins has dropped sharply since South Africa started permitting ships in the area to refuel at sea seven years ago,the study found.

3Lorien Pichegru is an acting director of the Coastal and Marine Research Institute at Nelson Mandela University,which led the study.She said that the organization had found that noise levels in the area had doubled since the refueling activities began.Scientists say high noise levels affect the ability of ocean animals to find and catch other animals for food.Noise also makes it more difficult for the animals to communicate with each other and map travel paths.

4In 2016,the South African Maritime Safety Authority(SAMSA)awarded the country's first offshore refueling operator's license to Aegean Marine.Later,it gave two licenses to SA Marine Fuels and Heron Marine.An order to halt any new licenses has been in place since August 2019.It will only be lifted after an environmental study is completed by port officials.The study is expected this year.Oil-covered penguins were found in 2019 in Algoa Bay after an oil spill from ship-to-ship refueling.Environmental groups have called for the activities to be banned in the bay.

5Pichegru said penguins in the area were already struggling to reproduce because of a series of issues,including industrial fishing operations.She added that the refueling activities did not kill all the penguins.“It was just the thing that made the whole ecology tip over and then the penguins couldn't cope with that,”she said.

Reading Check

Detail

1.Why are African penguins leaving their native habitat?

A.To get away from oil.

B.To hunt for more food.

C.To avoid shipping noise.

D.To escape the hot weather.

Detail

2.What directly caused the decrease of African penguins'population?

A.The refueling activities.

B.The loss of their abilities.

C.The reduction of their habitat.

D.The rising of sea level.

Vocabulary

3.What does the underlined word“halt”in paragraph 4 mean?

A.Award.

C.Design.

D.Stop.

Inference

4.What does Pichegru want to express about the penguins in the last paragraph?

A.Measures of saving them.

B.Their promising future.

C.Their present situation.

D.Reasons for their extinction.

Language Study

Ⅰ.Difficult sentences in the text

1.But the population of African penguins has dropped sharply since South Africa started permitting ships in the area to refuel at sea seven years ago,the study found.研究发现，自从南非七年前开始允许该地区的船只在海上加油以来，非洲企鹅的数量急剧下降。

我们现代人对工笔花鸟瓷画进行解读的时候可以见证它让人过目难忘的艺术魅力，在品味工笔花鸟瓷画艺术魅力的时候需要从它外在的形式美进行考究，从它的结构形式上进行探索，更重要的是需要领会其内在的文化价值，即画者内心世界的表达，也就是画面塑造的意境美。

【点石成金】本句是一个复合句。句中，the study是主句的主语，found是谓语，前面的整个句子是宾语从句；从句中有一个since 引导的时间状语从句，故前面的主句中的谓语动词使用现在完成时。

2.Lorien Pichegru is an acting director of the Coastal and Marine Research Institute at Nelson Mandela University,which led the study.洛里安·皮切格鲁是纳尔逊·曼德拉大学海岸和海洋研究所的代理所长，该研究所领导了这项研究。

【点石成金】本句是一个主从复合句。句中，which 引导的是一个非限制性定语从句，which在从句中作主语。