高一英语 课外知识扩读 Whales 巨鲸（中英对照）.docVIP

Whales 巨鲸 ?The concern throughout the world in 1988 for those three whales that were locked in the Arctic ice was dramatic proof that whales, several species of which face extinction, have become subjects of considerable sympathy. 19883头巨鲸被封在北极圈的冰块之中使全世界深感关切。这件事戏剧性地证明鲸类——其中有几个品种正在濒临灭绝——已经获得了人类的同情和关怀。 ? These are the recorded voices of whales. These monstrous creatures have been trumpeting their songs, one to another, in the worlds oceans since the dawn of time, while overhead, great empires and civilizations have come and gone. Now, their time of decline has come. It began a long time ago. 这些巨大无比的动物从洪荒时代以来，就在世界各大洋里彼此对唱着自己的歌。在它们上面的世界里，各大帝国和人类的各种文明此盛彼衰，不断更迭。现在它们衰败的时间已经来临，很早以前就已开始了。 ? Four-thousand-year-old rock carvings show that the people who lived in what is now Norway were probably the first to seek out and kill whales in the sea. By around 890 AD, 3,000 years later, the practice had spread to the Basque people of France and Spain, who hunted whales from boats in the Bay of Biscay. In the centuries that followed, Whaling became an important industry in Denmark, England, Germany, the Netherlands, and, finally, in what would become America. 4千年前的岩雕表明，住在现今挪威这个地方的人大概是最早在海上捕杀鲸鱼的人。3千年之后，到了公元890年时，这一做法已扩展到法国和西班牙的巴斯克族之中。他们乘船在比斯开湾捕鲸。在此后好几个世纪里，捕鲸成为丹麦、英国、德国、荷兰，最后也在后来成为美国的那些地方时一个重要的行业。 ? Whaling went into dramatic decline, beginning around 1900. Today, whales are hunted commercially only by Norway, Iceland and Japan. The worlds fascination with them, however, is at an all-time high, because so few of them are left. Given their tragic history. 从1900年前后开始，捕鲸业戏剧性地衰退了。如今只有挪威、冰岛、日本还在进行商业性捕鲸。可是，现在全世界对鲸鱼的爱好都达到了高潮，因为剩下的鲸鱼已经很少。我们已经了解到了鲸鱼的悲惨历史。 ? Richard Ellis writes about whales, takes pictures of whales in the open sea, and sketches whales stranded on the beach. He says its a 20-year obsession that began in the mid-1960s, when he designed a model of a great blue for the Museum of Natural History in New York. 理查德?埃利斯写作有关鲸鱼的著述，摄制鲸鱼在辽阔的大海里的照片，还把被困在海滩上的鲸鱼画下来。他说他，的这一爱好已有20年历史，开始于60年代中期，那时