family-oriented. These animals are separated from their mothers; that's a stress. You put them in a concrete tank where their sonar bounces off the walls, they can't swim in the same amount of time and direction that they can in the wild. P:Environmentalist and ocean explorer, Jean Michel Cousteau: J: There are some animals which reject captivity right away, and
they're very suicidal. I've had one of those in my own arms for many days. The next morning when I came to take care of him, he was dead. And what he'd done was to swim as fast as he could from one end of the pool on ... to the other side and destroyed his head by hitting the wall. They have a very sophisticated brain. I don't think we have any rights to play with the lives of these animals.
P:Cousteau's anti-captivity position is challenged by Dr. Deborah
Duffield, a biology professor at Portland State College in Oregon. Her 1990 study compared captive dolphins to the wild population of Sarasota Bay, Florida. Among other findings, the study showed little if any difference in the average age of death. And Duffield says life is generally getting better for captive dolphins.
D: The census data say that every time I do a census, I've got older
and older animals in it as well as this normal age distribution that we've been looking at. So my feeling is that the trend in captivity has been that the group of animals that we're following are getting older, and if they continue to do that over the next five years, they will then indeed be older than the wild population.
P:There is also a debate over the educational benefits of keeping
marine mammals in captivity. According to Duffield, captive dolphins play an important role in our basic understanding of the animals.
D: I firmly believe that we cannot learn anything about organisms
that we share this world with if we do not understand how they live in an environment, and what they do, and that watching them go by in the wild will not do it. I cannot tell what an animal needs, unless I know how it operates, how it breeds, what it needs metabolically, and I can't learn that from animals in the wild.
P:But Troud says the dolphin displays are anti-educational because
the animals' natural behavior patterns are altered by captivity.
R:In the wild, you don't have dolphins who beat each other to death.
There are no dolphins that I've ever seen stranded on the beach, who are suffering from fractured skulls, fractured ribs or fractured jaws, as is the case in captivity.
P:The Ocean Journey board will take all factors into consideration
before making a final decision on whether to include dolphins in the park. For Colorado Public Radio, I'm Peter Jones.
Part IV More about the topic:
Wildlife in danger
a profound effect：深远的影响 ecosystems：生态系统 upsetting：倾复 unclear：不清楚
adapt enough to：适应得够 adapt to：使适应于， 能应付 survive：活命 mountain：山 forest：林
giant panda：大熊猫
roughly：大约 bamboo：竹子 staple food：主食
Michigan State University：密歇根州立大学 a dramatic impact：巨大影响
the long-term solution：长期的解决方案 long-term：长期的;长远 heat-resistant： 耐热的，抗热的 notoriously： 恶名昭彰地;声名狼藉地 picky eater：好挑食
shrink：收缩，皱缩;（使）缩水;退缩，畏缩 shrinking fish：水温高鱼变小 consequence：结果 metabolic：新陈代谢的 metabolic rates：代谢率 oxygen：氧气 stay alive：活着 predict： 预言，预测
kill off：消灭，一个接一个地杀死 projection：预测;规划，设计 relatively： 关系上地;相对地;比较 calculate：计算;估计;打算，计划;旨在
case study：个案研究;专题;研究实例;范例分析 unexpectedly：未料到地，意外地;竟;居然;骤然 North Atlantic cod：北大西洋鳕鱼 underestimate：低估 haddock：小口鳕，黑线鳕
Climate change is having a profound effect on ecosystems around the world, upsetting and altering the lives of numerous species of animals. As temperatures continue to rise, it's unclear whether all species will be able to adapt enough to survive, especially as other species in their ecosystems adapt by getting smaller or larger.
A In the following report, you will learn some facts about the giant panda, an endangered species in China. Listen carefully and supply the missing information.
There are roughly 1 600 pandas living in the wild, mainly in the mountain forests of western China. Bamboo is their staple food. And they eat up to 38 kg a day. But some species of the plant take many years to grow, which means they don't adapt to climate change. Scientists are now predicting that an increasing temperature of even 2°C will kill off the species the pandas need to survive. One of the study's authors is Professor Jack Lu of Michigan State University.