是谁杀死了抹香鲸

四川 蒋建平

海洋被垃圾严重污染，大量海洋动物因此死去，恶劣的海洋环境给动物造成了严峻的生存挑战。

298 难度 ★★★ 建议用时文章词数 5分钟

A ten-year-old sperm whale(抹 香 鲸） was found dead on a beach in Scotland. A necropsy (尸检） revealed that nearly 100 kilograms of plastic and other trash had formed clumps(硬块） 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 (回声定位） to hunt for food, typically squid (乌贼）.

By contrast, baleen whales (须鲸), including humpbacks and blue whales, have natural filters (过滤器） 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 (磷虾） 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.

我们要着眼长远，从实现我党的长期执政的角度更加清醒地评估乡村治理的价值，城口县探索实施组织振兴举措、构建乡村治理体系具有很强的地域意义和实践意义。搭建党组织引领，各类集体经济组织和乡村社会组织支撑的“三位一体”的村级组织架构，对于边远贫困区县如何实现组织振兴提供了一种工作思路，围绕村级集体经济组织和农村社会组织建设抓乡村治理应当是抓党建促脱贫攻坚、抓党建促乡村振兴的重要突破口。

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

它为什么叫“抹香鲸”？ 它很香吗？ 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.