考研英语过度捕捞文章分享 考研初试

　　下面小编跟大家一起了解考研英语:过度捕捞文章分享，希望对大家的学习的有所帮助。
　　题图 : TheLazy Artist Gallery
　　Let's begin
　　When prehistoric man arrived in new parts of the world, something strange happened to the large animals: they suddenly became extinct. Smaller species survived. The large, slow-growing animals were easy game, and were quickly hunted to extinction. Now something similar could be happening in the oceans.
　　当史前人类到达一个新的地方，那个地方的大型动物就会发生一些奇怪的变化---它们会突然灭绝。其中那些体型小的活了下来，而那些体型大的，行动缓慢的动物很容易就被捕到，并且很快被捕杀殆尽。而现在同样的事儿也发生在海洋中。
　　That (the seas are being overfished) has been known for years. What researchers (such as Ransom Myers and Boris Worm) have shown is just how fast things are changing. They have looked at half a century of data fromfisheriesaround the world. Their methodsdonotattempt to estimate the actual biomass {the amount of living biological matter} of fish species in particular parts of theocean,butrather changes in that biomass (over time). According to their latest paper published inNature, the biomass of large predators {animals that kill and eat other animals} in a new fishery is reduced on average by 80% within 15 years of the start of exploitation. In some long-fished areas, it has halvedagain since then.
　　attempt : to make an effort or try to do sth, especially sth difficult.
　　contempt : the feeling that sb/sth is without value and deserves no respect at all.
　　tempt : to attract sb or make sb want to do or have sth, even if they know it is wrong.
　　halve : to reduce by a half. to divide sth into two equal parts.
　　我们很早就知道了海洋被过度捕捞的事实。研究员RM和BW观察了来自全世界各地渔场半个世纪以来的数据，指出了这个变化有多快。他们不是去测量海洋特定区域的鱼类的实际总量----活着的生物数量，而是测量在这段时期以来生物变化的数量。根据他们新发布在自然杂志的论文显示，在新渔场，以吃其他生物为生的捕食动物，在开始捕捞的15年里平均减少了80%。而从那时开始，在一些长期捕捞的区域，这个数量又减了半。
　　一些渔场的捕食动物减少了80%---假设100只，剩下20只。
　　一些长期捕捞的渔船该动物又减少了一半。剩下10只。
　　Dr. Worm acknowledges that these figures are conservative. One reason for this is that fishing technology has improved. Today’svesselscan find theirpreyusing satellites andsonar, which were not available 50 years ago. That means thatahigher proportion (of what is in the sea) is being caught, so the real difference (between present and past) is likely to be worse than the one which wasrecorded by changes in catch sizes. In the early days, too,longlineswould have been more saturated with fish. Some individuals would therefore not have been caught, since no baited hooks would have been available to trap them, leading to an underestimate of fish stocks in the past. Furthermore, in the early days oflonglinefishing, a lot of fish were lost tosharks(after they had been hooked.) That is no longer a problem, because there are fewer sharks around now.
　　figure : a number representing a particular amount, especially one given in official information.
　　vessel: a large ship or boat.
　　prey: an animal, a bird,etc. that is hunted, killed and eaten by another.
　　satellite : 卫星
　　sonar: 声纳定位仪
　　longline: 长线多勾
　　saturate : to fill sth/sb completely with sth.
　　shark: 鲨鱼
　　no longer : 不再

　　W博士认为这些数量还是有些保守。一个原因是现在的捕鱼技术得到了改善。今天的捕鱼船可以使用卫星和声呐来找到猎物，而这是50年以前所没有的。这意味着被捕捞的不止这个比例。所以现在和过去的这些不同，很可能导致在实际捕捞数量上也会比所记录的要多。另外，早些年，捕鱼其实也一样很严重，长线多勾本身也会钓到很多鱼，但可能因为没有带鱼饵的勾能用，一些鱼也就有没被捕捞到，这就导致，在过去就低估了鱼的数量。另外，早期通过长线钓鱼，那些鱼在被网住后很多就被鲨鱼给吃了---但这不再是个问题，因为现在鲨鱼也少了很多。
　　Dr. Myers and Dr. Worm argue that their work gives a correct baseline, which / future management efforts must take into account. They believe that the data support an idea (current among marine biologists, ) that of the “shifting baseline”. The notion is that people have failed to detect the massive changes (which have happened in the ocean) because they have been looking back only a relatively short time into the past.That matters/ becausetheory suggeststhat the maximum sustainableyieldthat can becroppedfrom a fishery comes (when the biomass of a target species is about 50% of its original levels.) Most fisheries are well below that, which is a bad way to do business.