VOA慢速英语2011--Bat Populations Are Important for Agricu

EXPLORATIONS - Bat Populations Are Important for Agriculture and the Environment

BARBARA KLEIN: I’m Barbara Klein.
MARIO RITTER: And I’m Mario Ritter with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. Today, we learn about the environmental and agricultural importance of bat populations. And, we visit the “Cod¹ Academy,” a training program for fishers in the American state of Maine.
(MUSIC)
BARBARA KLEIN: The United Nations has declared twenty eleven to twenty twelve the Year of the Bat. The campaign was launched last year as a way to strengthen efforts for protecting the world’s only flying mammal.
These creatures can be found in many parts of the world. Bats live in cities, deserts, grasslands² and forests. There are over one thousand two hundred bat species.
MARIO RITTER: The smallest bat in the world is from Southeast Asia. The Bumblebee bat measures about thirty millimeters in length. The world’s largest bat, the Giant Golden-Crowned Flying Fox, has a wingspan of one and a half meters. Most bats eat insects, but many feed on fruit or nectar from flowers.
Many people think bats are blind, but this is not true. Many species have very good sight. Most bats communicate and find their way by making “echolocation” noises. They produce high-frequency noises and can estimate the distance of an object by using the sound echoes that bounce back to them. So, while bats may travel in total darkness, they “see” using sound.
BARBARA KLEIN: Sadly, bats are widely feared and misunderstood. Most bats come out of their shelters only at nightfall. Three bat species feed on blood. Because of these qualities, bats have long been linked in many cultures to death, darkness and vampires³.
Yet bats are important for agriculture and our environment. They help pollinate plants and spread seeds. They also help control insects. Bats eat huge numbers of insects, including kinds that damage crops.
MARIO RITTER: For example, a brown bat can eat more than one thousand insects the size of a mosquito in one hour. One report says bats save American farmers billions of dollars every year by reducing crop damage and limiting the need for chemicals that kill insects. The report was published earlier this year in Science magazine.
Bats have also proved useful in the medical industry. Some bats carry a substance in their saliva⁴ that has been manufactured and used in medicine to help stroke victims.
BARBARA KLEIN: Over one-fifth of all bat species are under threat. They face disease and the human destruction of their natural environments. In the eastern United States, a disease called white-nose syndrome⁵ has greatly damaged bat populations over the past five years. The organization Bat Conservation International says white-nose syndrome has killed more than a million bats since it was discovered in a New York cave in two thousand six. In some areas, the disease has killed nearly one hundred percent of bat populations.
White-nose syndrome has now spread to at least nineteen other states and parts of Canada. The name of the disease comes from a white fungus⁶ found on the faces and wings of infected bats. The disease causes the creatures to awaken⁷ more often during hibernation⁸, the period when they normally rest. Infected bats leave their shelters during winter and can freeze to death. Or they may use up stored body fat and starve to death.
MARIO RITTER: Leslie Sturges is doing what she can to save bats. She is the director of Bat World NOVA, a bat protection group in the Washington, D.C. area. She cares for injured bats in the basement of her home. Then she releases them back into the wild.
LESLIE STURGES: “You hear a lot of people refer to bats as filthy⁹. But they aren’t. They groom¹⁰ like cats and dogs do. They use these toes back here to actually comb their fur coat out.”
MARIO RITTER: Ms. Sturges also talks about the importance of bats during visits to schools and nature centers. Her goal is to support their protection by bringing attention to the good things that bats provide to people and the environment.
She and her assistant are caring for about thirty injured, sick or orphaned¹¹ bats this summer.
BARBARA KLEIN: When the bats are healthy, she moves them to a closed off area next to her home so they can learn once more how to fly.
One of her bats is named Shaggy. She plans to release him, but first wants to make sure he eats well. When the sun sets, she sets him free. But he does not want to leave just yet.
LESLIE STURGES: “So I think what I am going to do is put him back in and let him nap for an hour and I am going to try and release him later tonight. Because he has to go. He can’t live here.”
BARBARA KLEIN: Ms. Sturges says Shaggy has a good chance of survival because red bats are common in the area.
(MUSIC)
MARIO RITTER: Several fishermen in Maine recently completed a study program at the country’s first ever “Cod Academy.” The Maine Aquaculture Association directs the program. It trains fishermen who usually earn a living fishing in the ocean to be fish farmers. The program is aimed at helping¹² commercial fishers to find a new way to carry out their trade.
(SOUND)
On a recent morning, a fishing boat left the public dock in the seaside community of Sorrento, Maine. But the men on the boat were not going fishing … they were going farming.
SEBASTIAN BELLE¹³: “Today we’re probably going to be moving cages and sorting codfish so the students will get experience doing that”.
BARBARA KLEIN: That was Sebastian Belle. He is head of the Maine Aquaculture Association. It operates the new “Cod Academy” in partnership¹⁴ with the University of Maine and other organizations.
About one and a half kilometers out to sea, the boat finds eight circular pens. A rubber tube encloses each one. The pens are covered with netting material to keep out seabirds. Inside each of the fifty-meter wide areas are up to fifty thousand cod. Most of these fish will be served on dinner tables around the world.
MARIO RITTER: This is the only commercial cod farm in Maine. The operator is Great Bay Aquaculture, a fish-farming company. It is one of the partners in the Cod Academy.
Mr. Belle says that during a year, students are taught everything they need to know about operating a floating farm.
SEBASTIAN BELLE: “One of the things we’ve been teaching the students is how to feed the fish and not overfeed the fish. So you want to give them enough feed, and not waste any feed and make it as efficient as possible.”
MARIO RITTER: The fish-farmers in training take turns throwing special fish food into the pen.
(SOUND)
Air bubbles appear as thousands of cod come up to feed. They can be seen from the boat with an underwater camera.
BARBARA KLEIN: Bill Thompson is one of the Cod Academy’s four students. He says the program has showed him that aquaculture, or fish-farming, is a wise choice.
BILL THOMPSON SR: “Even if the wild stocks came back to their fullest capacity they still wouldn’t feed the world. So this is the way of the future. And it’s feasible for a family to run a business also.”
BARBARA KLEIN: That is why Mr. Thompson’s son is also a student at the academy. Thirty-nine year old Bill Thompson Junior has been a working fisherman for much of his life. He earns a living diving for urchins¹⁵ and fishing for lobster¹⁶. But he notes that he has a wife and four children to support, so it was time for a change.
BILL THOMPSON JR: “Well I’ve seen a depletion¹⁷ of the source of everything I have been harvesting over the years. I look into the future, I can’t see my kids set up in what I’m doing right now as far as, you know, lobstering, urchining. I don’t want to see them get a source that’s depleting¹⁸ every year.”
MARIO RITTER: Becoming a fish-farmer has its own financial risks. Sebastian Belle says students need to develop a business plan before they can graduate. They will be expected to raise about half of the money they would need for any farm they want to create. Mr. Belle says the “Cod Academy” is based on successful programs started in Japan and Norway more than thirty years ago. Those programs were created to retrain fishers who once caught tuna and herring.
SEBASTIAN BELLE: “It’s never been done before in America and we’re trying to see if it’s a model that has some potential.
MARIO RITTER: Mr. Belle says he hopes the program will help people in Maine realize the huge promise that cod farming holds. He admits aquaculture has its critics. Critics say that crowding fish together in a farm can spread disease and produce unhealthy fish.
But Mr. Belle says Maine’s fish farmers have learned from those mistakes. And he says state inspectors¹⁹ make sure that fish farms obey environmental rules.
The first students of the “Cod Academy” graduated this month. They are now permitted to seek financial aid from the Maine Aquaculture Association to start their own cod-farms.
(MUSIC)
BARBARA KLEIN: This program was written and produced by Dana Demange, with reporting by Tom Porter and Jeff Swicord. I’m Barbara Klein.
MARIO RITTER: And I’m Mario Ritter. You can find our programs online with transcripts²⁰, MP3s, podcasts and pictures at voaspecialenglish.com Join us again next week for EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English.

1 cod   

n.鳕鱼；v.愚弄；哄骗

参考例句：

• They salt down cod for winter use.他们腌鳕鱼留着冬天吃。
• Cod are found in the North Atlantic and the North Sea.北大西洋和北海有鳕鱼。

2 grasslands   

n.草原，牧场( grassland的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Songs were heard ringing loud and clear over the grasslands. 草原上扬起清亮激越的歌声。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Grasslands have been broken and planted to wheat. 草原已经开垦出来，种上了小麦。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 vampires   

n.吸血鬼( vampire的名词复数 )；吸血蝠；高利贷者；（舞台上的）活板门

参考例句：

• The most effective weapon against the vampires is avampire itself. 对付吸血鬼最有效的武器就是吸血鬼自己。 来自电影对白
• If vampires existed, don`t you think we would`ve found them by now? 如果真有吸血鬼，那我们怎么还没有找到他们呢？ 来自电影对白

4 saliva   

n.唾液，口水

参考例句：

• He wiped a dribble of saliva from his chin.他擦掉了下巴上的几滴口水。
• Saliva dribbled from the baby's mouth.唾液从婴儿的嘴里流了出来。

5 syndrome   

n.综合病症；并存特性

参考例句：

• The Institute says that an unidentified virus is to blame for the syndrome. 该研究所表示,引起这种综合症的是一种尚未确认的病毒。
• Results indicated that 11 fetuses had Down syndrome. 结果表明有11个胎儿患有唐氏综合征。

6 fungus   

n.真菌，真菌类植物

参考例句：

• Mushrooms are a type of fungus.蘑菇是一种真菌。
• This fungus can just be detected by the unaided eye.这种真菌只用肉眼就能检查出。

7 awaken   

vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起

参考例句：

• Old people awaken early in the morning.老年人早晨醒得早。
• Please awaken me at six.请于六点叫醒我。

8 hibernation   

n.冬眠

参考例句：

• Bears wake up in the spring after a winter of hibernation.熊经过一个冬天的冬眠后在春季苏醒。
• The tortoise spends the winter months in hibernation.乌龟在冬眠中度过寒冬季节。

9 filthy   

adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的

参考例句：

• The whole river has been fouled up with filthy waste from factories.整条河都被工厂的污秽废物污染了。
• You really should throw out that filthy old sofa and get a new one.你真的应该扔掉那张肮脏的旧沙发，然后再去买张新的。

10 groom   

vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁

参考例句：

• His father was a groom.他父亲曾是个马夫。
• George was already being groomed for the top job.为承担这份高级工作，乔治已在接受专门的培训。

11 orphaned   

[计][修]孤立

参考例句：

• Orphaned children were consigned to institutions. 孤儿都打发到了福利院。
• He was orphaned at an early age. 他幼年时便成了孤儿。

12 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

13 belle   

n.靓女

参考例句：

• She was the belle of her Sunday School class.在主日学校她是她们班的班花。
• She was the belle of the ball.她是那个舞会中的美女。

14 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。

15 urchins   

n.顽童( urchin的名词复数 )；淘气鬼；猬；海胆

参考例句：

• Some dozen barefooted urchins ganged in from the riverside. 几十个赤足的顽童从河边成群结队而来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• People said that he had jaundice and urchins nicknamed him "Yellow Fellow." 别人说他是黄胆病，孩子们也就叫他“黄胖”了。 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说

16 lobster   

n.龙虾，龙虾肉

参考例句：

• The lobster is a shellfish.龙虾是水生贝壳动物。
• I like lobster but it does not like me.我喜欢吃龙虾，但它不适宜于我的健康。

17 depletion   

n.耗尽，枯竭

参考例句：

• Increased consumption of water has led to rapid depletion of groundwater reserves.用水量的增加导致了地下水贮备迅速枯竭。
• Farmers should rotate crops every season to prevent depletion of the soil.农夫每季应该要轮耕，以免耗尽土壤。

18 depleting   

使大大的减少，使空虚( deplete的现在分词 )； 耗尽，使枯竭

参考例句：

• Regulations are outlawing certain refrigerants, such as chlorofluorocarbons, which contain ozone-depleting chemicals. 随后出台的政策禁用了部分制冷剂，如破坏臭氧层的氟氯碳化合物。
• Aging, being a series of continual losses, can be keenly depleting. 老龄化，作为一个系列的连续亏损，可以清楚地消耗。

19 inspectors   

n.检查员( inspector的名词复数 )；（英国公共汽车或火车上的）查票员；（警察）巡官；检阅官

参考例句：

• They got into the school in the guise of inspectors. 他们假装成视察员进了学校。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Inspectors checked that there was adequate ventilation. 检查员已检查过，通风良好。 来自《简明英汉词典》

20 transcripts   

n.抄本（ transcript的名词复数 ）；转写本；文字本；副本

参考例句：

• Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样，都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
• You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书，你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句