1 .

Li Wenyong, 53, is a forest officer at the National Park in Hainan Province. His job is to find and observe Hainan gibbons (长臂猿), and record their latest situation with a camera and a pen.

Hainan gibbons live in rainforest trees over 10 meters high, seldom on the ground. In the 1950s, the Hainan gibbon population was over 2,000. However, local villagers began to open up land in the mountains. Gibbons lost their home. In the 1980s, the number of Hainan gibbons was just about seven.

In order to protect Hainan gibbons, Hainan government set out a series of measures. Local government planted more than 300,000 trees as food for the gibbons. Local people moved out of the mountains to give living space to the gibbons. Volunteers went into the rainforest to protect them. Thanks to these protection efforts, the number of the gibbons has risen.

Li loves his job. As Li sat down under a tree and adjusted his camera, several Hainan gibbons hung their bodies upside down and touched his head and equipment with their hands.

“Without protection, this species would be never seen again,” Li said. “I will guard them forever, until my legs can no longer run.”

DID YOUR FAMILY moved before? How did you adjust to life in a new place? Nowadays, scientists helped some Burrowing Owls settle (安置) into their new homes.

Burrowing owls are small brown long-legged birds. They make homes in underground burrows (洞穴) and prefer to live in groups. In California, U.S.A., there is another kind of owls called the Western Burrowing Owl.

In the past, these owls lived in the grasslands. Later, people began building cities on many of the grasslands. This drove the owls off their burrows. Some of these birds were unable to find new homes. As a result, the number of Western Burrowing Owls in California was fewer than that in 1965. If the number keeps falling, they will be at risk of dying out.

Luckily, scientists found out the problem some years ago. They soon began trying to move these owls to some protected grasslands. In order to make the birds feel more “at home”, scientists played the recording sound of owl calls in these areas. They also used white paint to make fake droppings (假粪便) of the owls. This made the birds believe that other owls were living there. As a result, they accepted (接受) their new home and stayed there.

Scientists returned to check on the owls. Most of them seemed to like their new homes. Good luck to them enjoying their new lives there!

5 . Everyone knows that the tiger is the king of the forest. But it’s one of the animals ______ now. There are less than 400 tigers left in the wilds in the world, ______ only 20 wild tigers are living in China. They mainly ______ in Changbai Mountain in Jilin province.

______ are they in such a serious situation? The tigers live in the forest. They feed ______ small animals there. But people cut down trees, the forest is becoming ______. They have no place to live in. And some people ______ small animals to eat or sell, so the tigers have ______ to eat. Also some people kill the tigers for their fur and bones. The tigers are fewer and fewer.

The government is working ______ to save the tigers. They set up a nature reserve in 2001. And about 100 people came to Changbai Mountain to help ______ the tigers this year.

6 . The giant panda is the rarest and most endangered（濒危的）species of the bear family. Millions of people love pandas very much across the world.However, there are not many pandas living in the wild or in zoos. There are only about 1, 600 living in the wild.Giant pandas can’t continue to survive（生存）in the wild without people’s protection（保护） . So why are they so rare（稀缺）?

One major reason（主要原因）is habitat （栖息地）loss. Pandas used to live in lowland forests in mountainous areas in southwest China, including Gansu, Shanxi, and Sichuan Province. But with the rise（上升）in the human population, people began to destroy these forests and turned them into farmland. As a result, many pandas had to leave their habitat.

Moreover, pandas are very fond of eating bamboo leaves. On average, an adult panda eats 20 to 40 pounds of bamboo every day. But people cut down many bamboo forests to meet their own needs.

Worse still, the birth rate of pandas is quite low. Pandas can only get pregnant（怀孕的）once a year during a very short period of time. And mother pandas can only have one or two babies at a time.

Nowadays, people around the world are working together to protect these cute black-and-white bears. We hope we will see a lot more pandas in the future.

One of the most unusual bears known to man is the panda bear. Panda bears live in southwestern China. They live in bamboo forests. There are two main     1     (kind) of pandas. They are the giant black­-and-­white panda and the red panda. Their     2     /weɪt/ is about 175 to 275 pounds. They get anywhere from five to six feet in height. New-born panda cubs are very small. They are born blind     3     completely helpless. They     4     /dɪ'pend/ heavily on their mothers. Once a baby panda     5     (leave) its mother, it will live all alone.

Pandas are very     6     /'æktɪv/ during day and night. They spend about 12 hours of their day     7     (eat) bamboo. Pandas have special bones in their wrists（腕）that can make them hold the stalks（茎）of the bamboo. Their teeth are so hard. They can     8     (easy) cut through the bamboo stalks. Pandas have also been known to eat grass, fish, fruit and rice.

Pandas are different     9     other bears in many ways. They move in     10     very slow, orderly manner and the panda bear does not hibernate（冬眠）. They live in a climate where they can eat all the year.

9 . There are two kinds of elephants in Africa—the African bush elephant (草原象) and the African forest elephant.

Each kind of African elephant is in danger. People have been taking over (占领) their homes in rainforests. They’ve cut down trees to make farms and houses. And they kill the elephants for their tusks (长牙), too. Their population is falling.     1     Yet there’s good news. People are trying to protect them.

Today, most African forest elephants’ homes are in Gabon, an African country. People in Gabon are now working to help the elephants. How?     2    

The government plans to limit (限制) the number of trees people can cut down.     3     Workers are also building fences (围栏) around the country’s national parks. That will prevent the elephants from going to nearby farms—where they might get killed by the farmers.

    4     That means letting people visit Gabon to see elephants. This can create new jobs and bring money into the country. More importantly, it can show that elephants are more valuable when they’re alive.

It’s necessary to save Africa’s elephants.     5     They also play a key role in keeping the forests healthy. So protecting the elephants means protecting people, too. In other words, helping the elephants also means helping us.

10 . Red wolves have a coat that is a mix of brown and red, and their size is smaller than that of a grey wolf. Most people first learn about them when they discover that they are in danger of dying out.

On April 21, 2022, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service(FWS) announced some good news for these endangered animals. Six red wolf pups(幼仔) had been born in the wild. This marks the first time these pups have been born in the wild since 2018.

Long ago, red wolves could commonly be found in the southeast of the U. S. But as the wolves were hunted, and more and more land was taken over for cities, roads and farms, the wolves began to die out.

In 1973, there were only about 17 red wolves remaining in the wild. The FWS carried out the Red Wolf Recovery Program to protect them. Fourteen of the 17 red wolves were caught and kept in captivity(人工圈养) . By 1980, no red wolves were found in the wild, so people believed that they were extinct there.

Luckily, the wolves did well in captivity, and their numbers continued to grow. Soon the FWS began releasing(放生) red wolves back into the wild. Between 1987 and 1994, the recovery program released 60 adult(成年的) red wolves.

Over time, those wolves spread out, paired up and began to have pups. In 2008, there were 47 wild pups born. By 2012, red wolf numbers had hit a new high point of about 120 wolves in the wild.

Sadly, though, wild red wolf numbers began to drop again. Some wolves were shot, and others were hit by cars. As the number of adults fell, the number of pups being born also began to drop. In 2018, a total of four pups were born in the wild. In 2019, 2020 and 2021, no wild pups were born at all.

So the news of the six new pups born in the wild in 2022 was of great importance. However, this good news wasn’t an accident. The FWS has been working hard to increase the number of red wolves in the wild and the protection of the new pups has already begun.