1 . In San Francisco, a large group of sea lions move themselves out of the bay waters and hang out on PIER 39, which is a popular tourist destination. According to dock (码头) officials, this is the most sea lions seen in the region in 15 years.
“Over 1,000 sea lions have been counted this week,” PIER 39 harbormaster Sheila Chandor told many different media. “The surge in sea lions is usually a good sign of their strong population and healthy living environment,” said Adam Ratner, Director of Conservation Engagement at the Marine Mammal (海洋哺乳动物) Center in Sausalito, California.
“California sea lions are sentinels (哨兵) of the ocean,” Ratner said. Their population to some extent reflects the health of the ocean. Therefore, seeing a large number of California sea lions is clearly a good thing.
For nearly 35 years, the slippery (滑的) residents have been a star attraction for tourists. That autumn in 1989, PIER 39 had just been repaired, but the ships had not yet been moved back. At that moment, the sea lions unexpected arrival not only attracted fans but also created enemies. According to a website, some dock residents and workers were scared away by the strong and very unpleasant smell and noise of their new neighbors, while others saw these animals as a bright spot after the destructive Loma Prieta earthquake.
The officials sought help from the Marine Mammal Center to find a way to deal with sea lions. Ratner said that the final decision is to let the sea lions stay and coexist with humans. “The fact proves that this is really a good thing,” he said. “This is just a proof of how we can truly work together and think about how we can share our coasts with marine mammals and other wildlife in a way that benefits all the parties involved.”
1. How does the author start the text?| A．By describing a situation. |
| B．By answering a question. |
| C．By holding a conversation. |
| D．By comparing different opinions. |
| A．Sharp increase. | B．Tight control. |
| C．Slow development. | D．Sudden movement. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Uninterested. |
| C．Supportive. | D．Unclear. |
| A．Sea lions are pretty cool animals. |
| B．Animals and humans can live in harmony. |
| C．Watching sea lions might not be a proper action. |
| D．Sea lions should be driven out of PIER 39. |
2 . Cold weather not only threatens the life of human beings but also the survival of wild animals. In Houston, it has claimed some unusual animal victims-bats.
Mary Warwick is the wildlife director at the Houston Humane Society. She was doing shopping when the freezing winds reminded her that she had not heard how the area’s bats were going. So she drove to the bridge where over 100 bats looked to be dead as they lay frozen on the ground. But during her 40-minute drive home, they began to come back to life. The bats made sounds and moved around in a box she had placed on her heated passenger seat for warmth. She returned to the bridge twice a day to collect more.
Two days later, she got a call about more than 900 bats rescued from a bridge in nearby Pearland, Texas. On the third and fourth days, more people showed up to rescue bats from the Waugh Bridge, and a special transportation effort was set up to get the bats to Warwick, which touched her a great deal. Each of the bats was warmed in an incubator (恒温箱) until their body temperature rose.
However, there were too many bats for one person to care for. The society’s current buildings did not have the necessary space, so Warwick and others put the bats in her attic (阁楼). The bats were separated by group in containers usually used for dogs. There, they were able to reach a state of hibernation (冬眠). Over 100 bats died because of the cold and the fall from the bridge but the others are being or have been released.
The society is now raising money to build a special room for bats at the society. The society’s entire animal rescue team will be vaccinated (接种疫苗) and trained in rescuing bats as they prepare to move into a larger building with the special bat room. “That would really help in these situations where we continue to see strange weather come through,” she said. “We could really use more space to rescue the bats.”
1. Why did Mary War wick drive to the bridge?| A．To get rid of the dead bats. | B．To check what happened to the bats. |
| C．To reach home a little earlier. | D．To monitor the surviving bats. |
| A．More people were willing to donate. |
| B．More people showed concern about her. |
| C．More people came up with good ideas. |
| D．More people joined her rescue. |
| A．There was not enough space to warm the bats. |
| B．An increasing number of bats died from the cold. |
| C．It was difficult for her to get bats into hibernation. |
| D．The bats’ body temperature didn’t rise as expected. |
| A．Critical. | B．Grateful. | C．Positive. | D．Doubtful. |
3 . A successful move of 21 eastern black rhinos (犀牛) to a new home of a grassy plateau that hasn’t seen them in decades will give them space to live and help increase the population of the critically endangered animals. It was Kenya’s biggest rhino relocation ever.
The rhinos were taken from three parks that are becoming overcrowded to the private Loisaba Conservancy, where rhinos were wiped out by poaching (偷猎) decades ago.
The 18-day exercise involved tracking the rhinos using a helicopter and then shooting them with tranquilizer darts(麻醉飞镖). Then the animals—which weigh about a ton each—have to be loaded into the back of a truck for the move. Disaster nearly struck early in the relocation effort, when a tranquilized rhino fell into a river. Workers held the rhino’s head above water with a rope to stop it from drowning while the tranquilizer drug took effect, and then the rhino was freed.
Some of the rhinos were transferred from Nairobi National Park and made a 300-kilometer trip. Others came from two parks closer to Loisaba.
Rhinos are generally animals enjoying being alone and are at their happiest in large living areas. As numbers in the three parks where the rhinos were moved from have increased, wildlife officials decided to relocate some in the hope that they will be happier and more likely to increase. David Ndere, an expert on rhinos at the Kenya Wildlife Service, said their reproduction rates decrease when there are too many in a territory.
Kenya has had relative success in recovering its black rhino population, which dipped from around 20, 000 in the 1970s to below 300 in the mid-1980s because of hunting, according to conservationists, raising fears that the animals might be wiped out completely in the country. Kenya now has around 1, 000 black rhinos, the third biggest population behind South Africa and Namibia. There are just over 6, 400 wild black rhinos left in the world, all of them in Africa, according to the Save the Rhino organization.
1. What’s the reason why the rhinos were moved to a new home?| A．Locals’ deadly effects. | B．Their limited living space. |
| C．Their too large population. | D．Their preference for a grassy plateau. |
| A．Moving rhinos safely was a very serious challenge. |
| B．The method of transporting rhinos was too backward. |
| C．Many disasters happened during the rhino relocation. |
| D．Most rhinos in the three parks migrated on their own. |
| A．A reintroduction of an endangered animal. | B．A gradual increase of the rhino population. |
| C．A much larger national natural park in Kenya. | D．A more booming tourism with rhino exhibitions. |
| A．Ways to Move Rhinos Safely | B．Black Rhinos’Situation in Kenya |
| C．Kenya’s Biggest Rhino Relocation | D．The Black Rhino Reserves in Kenya |
4 . Leif Richardson, who is a conservation biologist, and I are out with the goal of piecing together a picture of where wild bees live, and which species are in trouble in the home range of a native bee called Crotch’s bumble bee (大黄蜂). That bee is protected by the state law, and it’s one of the many species under survey.
Our journey began at the foot of a mountain in Leo Carrillo State Park. It was a cloudy morning. We set off for a short hike, armed with bee nets and a cooler to cool any bees we would catch. It’s a harmless way to temporarily calm the bees, and to allow for more careful study and photos.
Just a minute later, as Richardson walked into a meadow (草地), I heard him scream, followed by a snake! He stood there frozen for a moment before backing away towards the path, and then the snake went away.
We were a little more careful with the possibilities then, as we prepared to catch our first bees. They were not hard to find—I could hear them buzzing everywhere, and soon Richardson said it was time for me to catch one.
He told me to pinch (捏住) the tip of my net and held it upright, while slowly lowering it over a flower where our bumble bee was standing. As soon as the bee realized what was going on, it buzzed furiously inside my net, and then slowly climbed up the net towards the tip right where my finger was.
It all seemed like a high possibility to get stung (被蜇). But Richardson assured me I would be fine. He had some advice for holding it. “You’re going to pinch harder than you think you need to, but not so hard that you hurt the bee.” As my fingertips got closer to the bee, it felt like I could hear it buzzing louder and louder. Richardson performed this whole process in seconds. For me, on the other hand, it was a nervous act of much concentration. But it paid off—and soon, I got my very first bee!
1. What did Richardson come across on the way?| A．A sudden rain. | B．A snake. | C．A bee net. | D．A cooler. |
| A．The process of bee-catching. | B．The present situation of bumble bees. |
| C．The challenge of finding a bumble bee. | D．The purpose of studying bumble bees. |
| A．He failed. | B．He got stung. | C．He was nervous. | D．He was professional. |
| A．A Love of Nature | B．A New Law for Bumble Bee |
| C．An Outing for Bumble Bee | D．A Trip to Leo Carrillo State Park |
5 . 4 Reasons Why Wild Animals Are So Important
As we know, the earth gives us food, medicines and materials, often through wild animals. These wild animals are important to our existence. Sadly, they are becoming extinct at an alarming rate. We need to change this loss of nature and create a future where wildlife and people thrive (蓬勃发展) again.
Wild animals keep balance in ecosystems.
Diversity (多样性) means healthier ecosystems and healthier wild animals.
When there is a wildlife issue, you’ll often hear the term biodiversity, which refers to the number of species in an ecosystem.
All of the food that we eat comes from an animal or plant. Living without various food sources causes our nutrition (营养) to suffer. Protecting wildlife and its natural habitats strengthens food safety for humans around the world.
Wildlife helps medical research.
Wild animals have helped us find important medicines that help with many diseases.
| A．All living things are interconnected. |
| B．Healthy ecosystems mean a lot of diversity. |
| C．Or we will lose these animals to future generations. |
| D．People worldwide depend on wildlife for their snack. |
| E．Wildlife provides important nutrients for the human race. |
| F．The human race has always turned to nature for medicine. |
| G．We should notice the influence caused by wildlife on culture. |
6 . Whales are known for their majestic (雄伟的) songs that travel through the ocean depths, but the reasons behind this behavior have long puzzled scientists. Recent research reveals this mystery, suggesting that whales possess a unique voice box that enables their powerful voice, a feature not found in other animals.
In a study published in the journal Nature, Coen Elemans and his team from the University of Southern Denmark examined the voice boxes. By conducting experiments, the researchers identified the tissues responsible for producing sound.
Whales, whose ancestors were land-dwellers around 50 million years ago, have developed their voice boxes over millions of years to adapt to underwater communication. Unlike humans and many other mammals (哺乳动物) , whales lack vocal cords and instead have a unique U-shaped tissue in their voice boxes. This specialized structure allows them to intake large volumes of air and generate sounds by pushing this tissue against a cushion of fat and muscle, a mechanism essential for their deep-sea sound.
The significance of this research is highlighted by Jeremy Goldbogen, an associate professor at Stanford University, who describes it as the most comprehensive study to date on how whales vocalize. He emphasizes the need for further exploration to these marine giants. For instance, humpback whales are known for their sound that can travel vast distances across oceans, serving as a form of communication within whales.
Joy Reidenberg, a whale expert, says, “More experiments are needed to confirm the study’s conclusions and understand how these creatures use their voice boxes to communicate in the ocean.”
1. What does the research find?| A．Whales may make sound underwater. |
| B．Whales communicate in a special way. |
| C．What brings about whales’ strange behavior. |
| D．What makes whales’ loud sound possible in the ocean. |
| A．Paragraph 3. | B．Paragraph 4. | C．Paragraph 5. | D．Paragraph 2. |
| A．Mysterious. | B．Ineffective. | C．Inadequate. | D．Creative. |
| A．Evolution Of Whale Communication Skills | B．Research On How Whales Make Sounds |
| C．How Whales Communicate Underwater | D．How Scientists Research Whales’ Sound |
7 . OH1, a crow-sized seabird, touched down just off the Maryland coast on April 18, completing a migration from Argentina. Soon, more terns (燕鸥) joined OH1, and nesting season was officially underway.
The common terns had become uncommon in Maryland until conservationists and scientists gave the birds, listed as endangered in the state, an artificial wooden raft (筏子). This is one of the birds’ last toeholds in the state.
Every spring for the last three years, staff at the Maryland Coastal Bays Program (MCBP), have pulled the nesting raft into the water of Chincoteague Bay, a narrow slice of ocean situated between the state’s mainland and a chain of barrier islands. The bay was once rich with the kind of nesting habitat seabirds need: small sandy islands where predators (捕食者) are rare and bushes provide shade to flightless chicks on hot summer days. But over the last century, due to coastal development and sea level rise, those islands have disappeared. And so did the terns. By 2020, there were only 60 nesting pairs left.
Initially intended as a temporary solution, the rafts have not only stopped the common tern’s population decline — they’ve completely reversed it. In 2021, 23 pairs of tern s nested on the platform; in 2022, 155 sets of parents hatched 140 chicks.
Figuring out the formula for the birds’ success has been an ongoing process. Dave Brinker, a regional ecologist, says that observing the birds each year “helps us get more terns on the rafts.”
For example, during the first year the raft contained only some tiny wooden shelves intended to provide shade to the baby birds. But the adult terns used the chick shelters like fence lines, outlining their territory. “A natural habitat will have grass to provide that natural geographic separation,” Brinker says. “So the next year we added plastic grass to break up the visual landscape.”
While the nesting platform has become a life raft for the tern population, it remains a temporary solution. The team hopes ultimately to convince the state to rebuild the lost islands.
1. Why did scientists put the nesting raft into the water of Chincoteague Bay?| A．The weather there is warmer. |
| B．It is the only bay left for seabirds. |
| C．There are visitors waiting to see terns. |
| D．The environment is suitable for terns to produce. |
| A．Recorded. | B．Changed. | C．Ended. | D．Employed. |
| A．To introduce terns’ natural habitat. | B．To explain ecologists’ ongoing work. |
| C．To point out the living habits of terns. | D．To show the construction of rafts. |
| A．Terns in Maryland Are in Danger |
| B．Various Measures Are Taken to Save Seabirds |
| C．Threatened Seabirds Get a Life Raft in Maryland |
| D．Rafts Are Becoming Terns’ Permanent Settlements |
8 . A sperm whale (抹香鲸) surfaces. The baby whale comes in close to drink milk. When the baby has had its fill, mom moves her tail. Then, together the pair div e down deep. Gasper Begus watches from a boat. “You get this sense of how vast and different their world is when they dive,” he says. “But in some ways, they are so similar to us.”
Sperm whales have families and other important social relationships. They also use loud clicking sounds to communicate. It seems as if they might be talking to each other.
Begus is an expert majoring in languages. He got the chance, last summer, to observe sperm whales in their wild Caribbean habitat off the coast of the island nation of Dominica. With him were marine biologists and roboticists. There were also experts in other fields. All have been working together to listen to sperm whales and figure out what they might be saying.
They call this Project CETI. That’s short for Cetacean Translation Initiative. To get started, Project CETI has three listening stations. Each one is a cable (电缆) hanging deep into the water from the surface. Along the cable, several dozen underwater microphones record whale sounds. From the air, drones (无人机) record video and sounds. Robots do the same underwater. But just collecting all these data isn’t enough. The team needs some way to make sense of it all. That’s where artificial intelligence, or AI, comes in.
Now a type of AI known as machine learning can find patterns from vast amounts of data and you can open an app and use it to help you talk to someone who speaks Japanese or French. One day, the same tech might translate sperm-whale clicks.
Project CETI’s team is not the only group turning to AI for help. Researchers have trained AI models to sort through the sounds of prairie dogs, dolphins and many other creatures. Could their efforts crack the codes of animal communication? Let’s take a cue from the sperm whales and div e in head first.
1. What is the purpose of paragraph 1?| A．To lead in the topic. | B．To introduce Gasper Begus. |
| C．To imply the danger of scientists’ work. | D．To show humans and whales’ similarities. |
| A．It needs experts’ joint efforts. |
| B．It requires a good command of whales’ language. |
| C．It demands the knowledge of whales’ living habitat. |
| D．It calls for an understanding of whales’ social relationships. |
| A．To collect sounds. | B．To analyze data. |
| C．To monitor whales. | D．To operate drones. |
| A．The wide application of Al. | B．The sperm whales’ parenting styles. |
| C．The study of the sperm whales’ clicks. | D．The ways to track sperm whales. |
9 . Since we’ve known about some cute animals, what about animals which aren’t so cute?
My favourite is a little creature called the Tasmanian devil. If you are out camping in Tasmania and come across one, the experience might scare you! Tasmanian devils hunt at night, so you won’t usually see them, but you may hear their loud cries when they are fighting or eating. The noise they make could wake the dead. Frightening! They are about the size of small dogs and look like rather large black rats. They also have a terrible smell! Their diet is mostly dead animals. Fortunately, despite their name, they are generally not violent towards people.
Australia also has some animals that many people have never heard of, for example, the duck-billed platypus. Is that some kind of bird? Not at all. While it may lay eggs in a nest like a bird, it’s really a primitive mammal, with a unique biology. Its eggs hatch after about ten days, and then the baby platypus nurses from its mother like all other mammals. Its nose looks like a duck’s bill, and it has feet like a duck’s so it can dive under the water, but it’s covered in hair. Do you know what’s really strange about a platypus? The platypus doesn’t use its senses of sight or smell to find food. It has a capacity to find food in the water by using electrical sensors in its bill. There are only a small handful of animals in the world that can do that!
1. What two things about Tasmanian devils can bother people most?| A．Their diet and violent behaviors. |
| B．Their loud noise and terrible smell. |
| C．They like fighting and are hard to hunt. |
| D．Their ugly appearance and terrible smell. |
| A．Small dogs | B．Large rats. | C．Dead animals. | D．Violent animals. |
| A．It lay eggs like a bird. | B．It nurses from its mother. |
| C．It can dive under the water. | D．Its eggs hatch after 10 days. |
| A．By using electrical sensors. | B．By using its senses of sight. |
| C．By using its senses of smell. | D．By hanging out in the water. |
10 . The Amazon rainforest, is as undisturbed a place as most people can imagine, but even there, the effects of a changing climate are playing out. Now, research suggests that many of the region’s most sensitive bird species are starting to evolve in response to warming.
Birds are often considered sentinel (哨兵) species —meaning that they indicate the overall health of an ecosystem — so scientists are particularly interested in how they’re responding to climate change. In general, the news has not been good. For instance, a2019 report by the National Audubon Society found that more than two-thirds of North America’s bird species will be in danger of extinction by 2100 if warming trends continue on their current course.
For the new study, researchers collected the biggest data set so far on the Amazon’s resident birds, representing 77 non-migratory species and lasting the 40 years from 1979to 2019. During the study period, the average temperature in the region rose, while the amount of rainfall declined, making for a hotter, dryer climate overall. According to the report on November 12 in the journal Science Advances, 36 species have lost substantial weight, as much as 2 percent of their body weight per decade since 1980. Meanwhile, all the species showed some decrease in average body mass, while a third grew longer wings.
Because of the study’s long time series and large sample sizes, the authors were able to show the morphological (形态学的) effects of climate change on resident birds. However, the researchers themselves are unsure and wonder what advantage the wing length changes give the birds, but suppose smaller birds may have an easier time keeping cool. In general, smaller animals have a larger rate of surface area to body size, so they dissipate more heat faster than a bigger animal. Less available food, such as fruit or insects, in dryer weather might lead to smaller body size.
1. Why are scientists fond of doing research on birds?| A．They have small body sizes. | B．They are sensitive to hot weather. |
| C．They live in an undisturbed rainforest. | D．They are ecological balance indicators. |
| A．A third of species have been extinct for a decade. |
| B．36 species lost 2% of their body weight every year. |
| C．Two-thirds of species showed a considerable decrease in weight. |
| D．About 26 species responded to climate change with longer wings. |
| A．Put off. | B．Give off. | C．Put away. | D．Give away. |
| A．Why it is easier for smaller animals to keep cool. |
| B．What effects the wing length changes have on birds. |
| C．Why the Amazonian birds have lost substantial weight. |
| D．Whether bird species in North America will be extinct in 2100. |
