英语听力：自然百科 鲨鱼的危机

 The sharks are under increasing threat around the world from overfishing. They are used as a food item in many parts of the world. Shark fin¹ soup is particularly popular in Asian countries. And sharks are easy to catch. You put a baited hook in the water, and if there’re sharks nearby, they’re gonna bite the hook. So they are easy to catch, easy to kill, but unfortunately what works against them, apart from the catching² part, they have a very low reproductive rate. So when you kill a shark, the next shark around may have pups. They only carry a few pups at a time. Unlike many of the reedfishes you might see behind me which produce microscopic³ eggs by the millions, sharks only produce a handful of pups. So when sharks are removed from the water from overfishing, it is very hard for them to replace those missing sharks, and they also have to be several years old before they are capable of reproducing. So worldwide we are seeing unfortunate declines in the numbers of sharks.

 

Across the board and all the, to the species or?

 

No, it’s not across the board, there are still some you know very deep water sharks which are not fished and are presumably in good condition population wise. Sharks that are not eaten, or not targeted by any fisheries, by and large, are still in reasonably good numbers. But the larger sharks, the carnivore sharks that bite hooks very easily, some of the oceanic sharks that are easily picked up by long liners and so forth⁴, those are the ones that seem to be most in danger. Not necessarily endangered, some of them are, but in danger.

1 fin   

n.鳍；(飞机的)安定翼

参考例句：

• They swim using a small fin on their back.它们用背上的小鳍游动。
• The aircraft has a long tail fin.那架飞机有一个长长的尾翼。

2 catching   

adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住

参考例句：

• There are those who think eczema is catching.有人就是认为湿疹会传染。
• Enthusiasm is very catching.热情非常富有感染力。

3 microscopic   

adj.微小的，细微的，极小的，显微的

参考例句：

• It's impossible to read his microscopic handwriting.不可能看清他那极小的书写字迹。
• A plant's lungs are the microscopic pores in its leaves.植物的肺就是其叶片上微细的气孔。

4 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。