I still remember what I felt on a bright Saturday morning in late September, at a five-kilometer race in Clarkston, Georgia.

It was an unusual morning. About an hour earlier, when we drove into town to participate in the race, my 11-year-old son noticed a green tree cricket（蟋蟀） on my car. It was friendly, no longer than a fingernail. It jumped onto my son’s finger, and walked across my shirt, and then went back to my son’s hand, where it stayed so long that we eventually gave it a name: Little Friend.

The walk from the car to the registration table was perhaps a quarter of a mile. Little Friend stayed with my son. Then, we walked back across the railroad tracks and waited for the race to start. A few minutes before the race, Little Friend either fell or jumped off my son’s hand and landed on the sidewalk. Maybe it wanted to go free. But this was not a good place for that. Pedestrian（行人） traffic was heavy, so Little Friend was in danger. My son knelt and reached out his hand. It came back.

The race was about to start, and the tiny green insect was in for a wild ride. My son would run fast, and the race would be long. The race began. I ran well enough, and felt excited at the finish line. But that thrill gave way to anxiety when my son didn’t show up.

I knew he could run 5 kilometers in about 30 minutes. When I didn’t see him at the 35-minute mark, I began to wonder what had gone wrong. And as the 40-minute mark approached and he still didn’t appear, I went out looking for him. Had he got lost? I crossed the railroad tracks and looked down a long straightaway, hoping to see his face. Finally, there he was, just ahead of the 45-minute mark.

Little Friend was riding proudly on one finger of my son’s right hand.

Smiling, we walked back to the car with Little Friend.

A black bear was in a dangerous situation when she fell off a 30-meter-high bridge. After a long day in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, the bear probably thought she was taking a shortcut home. She was walking across the bridge when, suddenly, two cars entered from both sides. There was nowhere to run, so the frightened bear jumped and fell over the side.

Luckily, the bear pulled herself onto an arch (拱形门) under the bridge, but she was trapped (困住) there. A driver saw the unbelievable scene and called 911.Robert Brooks, an animal control officer from the nearby town, was sent to investigate. “I thought it was a joke.” he said. But it wasn’t a joke, so he called Dave Baker of the BEAR League-a group that helps bears in trouble.

Unfortunately, the sky was getting dark, so the volunteers had to wait. Early next morning, the two men returned to the bridge with more volunteers. Amazingly, the bear was still there. They needed to help her quickly. Baker had an idea-they should hang a net under the bear, push her into it, and then lower her to the ground.

Firefighters volunteered to lower the 100-kilogram bear once she was in the net. Police officers closed the road, and when the net arrived, it was hung under the bridge. Then, an animal control officer shot a dart (飞镖) containing a sleeping medicine into the bear’s shoulder. Ann Bryant，head of the BEAR League, stood under the bridge. When the bear was sleepy, Bryant shouted “OK, push!” A volunteer rock climber used his feet to push the bear off the arch, right into the middle of the net.

The bear was gently lowered to the ground

My husband Erik and I had promised the kids a Labrador puppy.

I’d seen the ad at the local hardware store. “Thirteen puppies in all, “Sally, the owner, said when I called. ”There’ re only three left. “I decided to take a look the next day. The boys jumped and shouted excitedly as I copied down directions and hung up the phone.

Early the next morning, still discussing names, we wound our way through the mountains to meet our family’s new best friend. Our boys had simple names: Ike, Sam, Ben, and Dom, so they Preferred simple names like Rosy ,too. Finally, we met the sweet little dog. ” Rosy, “the boys called it softly. Our little puppy cocked her head. ” She likes it,“they cheered and set about making Rosy comfortable for the long drive home. They offered her a chew toy and lifted her up so she could see out the window. They took turns holding her in their arms lovingly and offered her a snack.

Though small, Rosy grew strong and healthy beneath her shiny black coat. And, just as I’d hoped, she was a calming addition to our houseful of noisy boys. But something was wrong. “It’s like she doesn’t know how to play,” Sam commented one day after school. “Dogs have different personalities, just like people,”I said. “Besides, she’s still very young. ” “But her legs aren’t very long, and one eye is smaller than the other,”Ike added, trying to make sense of why Rosy was different from other puppies he’d met.

I looked across the room to where Rosy sat between the boys. The last golden rays of autumn sunshine shone brightly on her face. Sure enough, one eye was misshapen. Not only that, it didn’t glint (闪光) in the afternoon light. I drew in a breath. Rosy, our puppy with a name as short as her four little legs, was blind in one eye.

Everyone in the room became serious and sad.

Surprisingly, the boys refused to give the little puppy back.

To mark their hard work and contribution to wildlife protection in the reserve, last year, Shi’s 20-member team was recognized with a special award at an online award ceremony for the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas’ International Ranger Awards.

Kathy MacKinnon, head of the commission, speaks highly of their work, saying that they are “critical to our global conservation efforts, helping to stem biodiversity loss and protect the important ecosystems that serve as natural solutions to climate change and other global challenges".

Shi realizes that through protecting endangered animals, like giant pandas and snow leopards, the rich biodiversity of the environment can also be maintained, which is a win-win situation.

After graduation from Sichuan Forestry School(now Sichuan Agricultural University) in 1992, Shi became a forest guardian at the Wolong National Nature Reserve.

Established in 1963, Wolong is the country’s earliest panda reserve. It experienced serious human-animal conflict, such as illegal logging and hunting before the 1990s. In 1978, an observation tent, claimed to be the country’s first field camp to study wild giant pandas, was built on a steep forested slope in the reserve.

In the early 1980s, the government cooperated with the World Wide Fund for Nature to establish the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda to save the endangered animal.

At the very beginning, it was really difficult for rangers. With no proper outdoor equipment, like protective jackets or sleeping bags, every time, going around the area could be a life-threatening adventure. Plastic woven bags were commonly used for warmth and as makeshift tents for emergency cases. For Shi, the real challenges are natural disasters, which cannot be predicted.

He has a vivid memory of a snowslide in June 2017 during a routine inspection. “We were about to climb over a 400-meter-long mountain pass,

There is a lot of hard work involved in protecting wildlife, but there are also some surprises from the job.

Nowadays, leaders the world over are busy mapping out blueprints for a new age with environmental protection high on their agenda. Sustainable development hits headlines almost every day. It is of utmost importance to restore the harmonious balance between man and nature, given the damage we’ve already done to it.

First of all, we must realize that man and nature are interactive. To begin with, we derive everything from nature. Among other things, I’m sure you’ve all tasted natural produce that is otherwise known as green food. And you must have noticed that nearly all beautifying products boast of being natural creams, natural lotions or natural gels. For man, nature has an irresistible appeal.

But on the other hand we must also realize that nature can be unruly. Nature is indeed like a riddle, some areas of which are beyond the reach of science and technology, at least in the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, the advancement of science and technology will still characterize the next millennium. The coming new age will provide many opportunities, but it will be likewise run of challenges. For instance, United Nations’ demographers predict that global population could soar from its current 5.9 billion to as many as 11.2 billion by 2050. This will worsen the current scarcity of natural resources caused by environmental degradation. More conflicts over this scarcity may occur with the ghost of nuclear wars always hiding in the background. To prevent this nightmare from coming true, governments need to work closely with each other and back up their verbal commitment by actions. However, it is not enough only to ask what governments can do to achieve the harmony between man and nature. We must ask ourselves what we as individuals can do.

Can we all be economical with food, water, electricity or other resources? Can we, or rather, some greedy ones among us, stop making rare plants and animals into delicious dishes? Can we stop using the unrecyclable style of lunch boxes? If not, one day they may bury us in an ocean of white rubbish. After all, the earth is not a dustbin; it’s our common home.

On my seventh birthday, I got a gift from my father, which was a book titled Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians. It was my favorite. I kept it under my pillow and read every page over and over every night enjoying the pictures of colorful animals. Some of the snakes were the most beautiful creatures I had ever seen.

Little did I know that my book would end up saving a life.

Years ago, my family moved into a new house near the woods. My father built a sandbox in our yard. The cat sometimes used the sandbox for a litter box, so my father had to put a plastic cover over it .When I wanted to build sand castles, I had to pull the cover off.

One day before dinner, I ran to the sandbox to build a miniature city. I pulled off the plastic cover, and there in the sandbox was a snake. It was lying very sill, all coiled up, and it was beautiful. The snake had rings of color around it. I had seen a picture just like it in my guidebook, and I remembered that it was one of the prettiest snakes in it. It said in the book that the poisonous coral snake looked very much like the harmless king snake, the only difference was in the order of the colors. 1 ran inside to get the guidebook.

“Mom! Mom! There’s a snake in the sandbox!” I yelled. “I have to find out what kind it is!”

Mom came running. “Don’t touch it, Chris! It might be poisonous!”

Dad was at work, so my mother went to get our neighbor, Mr. Cook.

“Mr. Cook!” my mother yelled across the fence, “We have a snake in the sandbox, and it might be poisonous!”

Mr. Cook was retired and lived with his wife in the house on the other side of our back fence. He came running toward the gale with a shovel and tried to kill the snake.

“Wait!” I shouted, waving the guidebook in my hand.

“So what to do now?” Mr. Cook put down the shovel.

“You should get a dog.” my therapist (治疗专家) said. A dog? I couldn’t even look after myself. I took a deep breath and carefully considered the idea of welcoming a canine (犬科的) friend into my life. This seemed like too easy a solution to the fact that I couldn't leave the house without bursting into tears.

Adopting an animal during the height of the pandemic was far from easy. When I found Simba, his adoption profile made him out as the perfect puppy. I filed out the paperwork and had a few weeks to prepare for his arrival.

When he came home, it became increasingly obvious that Simba didn’t understand “no”, “stop it’ or “don’t do that”. He was the worst-behaved dog I’d ever seen. I was beginning to doubt my therapist’s advice.

At home, I found him sitting on my bed comfortably. Jumping from the sofa to the tea table was his favorite game every day. He fought tooth and nail to get a bite of my meals and ate anything that fell on the floor. What was worse,dog waste and urine were seen everywhere, which annoyed me most. But his curiosity and vigor really impressed me. Training him to behave well kept me busier than I’d ever expected.

I decided to start taking him for walks. I could barely leave the house before, but my heart couldn’t say no to Simba. Simba showed me what bravery looked like. He didn’t stop to consider every possible outcome of a situation. He simply went for it. If there was a dog at a park,he would run toward it. He always leapt forward and explored the unknown by sniffing here and there unless I called him. He loved adventure. I found myself mirroring his behavior after a while,jumping out of bed without a second thought. I began to find the motivation to get out of bed in the morning.

Paragraph 1: Ten minutes later, Simba and I were walking in the nearby park.

Paragraph 2: As time went by, I found myself totally changed.