英语听力：自然百科 罗斯福国家公园
时间：2014-05-07 07:37:50
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（单词翻译）
On the northern prairie of North Dakota, the day starts with a distinctive1 rhythm. Bison prepare for the mating season. The bulls bellow2 challenges that echo across the badlands. Prairie dogs bark shrill3 warnings at the approach of an intruder.
And riders mount up to explore an area still best-travelled on horseback. All this is the
legacy5 of President Theodore Roosevelt, who first visited and rode about this land in 1883.
Well, probably the most profound item that he wrote about constantly was the
solitude6 that one can find riding through the badlands. He found the beauty, you know, interested, he wrote about the grimly
picturesque7 badlands which kinda describes this area
perfectly8 today.
Theodore Roosevelt came out here in 1883 to hunt for a
buffalo9 or bison. It was his dream to get one possibly before they were all gone.
Roosevelt bagged his bison and went back east to a
promising10 political career, not realizing he would soon return to the badlands. The Maltese Cross Cabin was Roosevelt's first home here. It was a refuge from personal tragedy and political disappointment. Today the badlands Roosevelt roamed and loved are a national park that bears his name.
We can not talk about conservation and national park service without talking about Theodore Roosevelt. During his term of
presidency11, he helped to establish five national parks. He also used a law, the
Antiquities12 Act to set aside 18 national monuments.
Theodore Roosevelt National Park preserves a prairie
ecosystem13 that's become increasingly rare.
There's a couple of plain.
There are some things here Roosevelt wouldn't recognize. By the 1880s, bison had been hunted nearly out of existence in this badlands. Since they were reintroduced in the 1950s, the
herd14 has grown. Perhaps the thing that has changed the least here is solitude.
I love going out to backcountry and hearing the nothingness, the quietness and experiencing the same thing that Theodore Roosevelt wrote about.
He wrote of listening to the
rustle15 of the cottonwood leaves, of
winding16 his way among the barren, fantastic and grimly picturesque deserts of the badlands, a feeling and an attraction to the lonely freedom of the wilderness. That feeling is as real today as it was then.
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