美国国家公共电台 NPR

 

DON GONYEA, HOST:

As gray whales make their annual migration¹ to their Arctic feeding grounds, four have washed up dead on Alaska's shores. This comes after at least 60 gray whales were found dead earlier this year along the Pacific coast from California to Washington, the most in nearly two decades. The whales aren't getting enough to eat. But scientists aren't sure why, and they're hoping the dead animals in Alaska can supply some answers. Nat Herz is with Alaska's Energy Desk.

NAT HERZ, BYLINE²: Trust me on this one; i - you're going to slice open a dead whale, you want a sharp knife. Kathy Burek and her crew are trying to get inside a newly beached gray whale just off a highway outside Anchorage. She brought more than a dozen knives, but she hasn't had time to sharpen them since carving³ up another dead gray whale a couple of days before. So Burek pulls a couple of volunteers out of a crowd of bystanders and puts them to work.

KATHY BUREK: Oh, careful.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: It scares me a bit holding it like that.

BUREK: Yeah, maybe hold it on its side there. There you go. I like that much better.

HERZ: It's a busy time for Burek, who's a veterinary pathologist. That means she studies animal disease. She's hired by the federal government to collect samples from whales when they die. This one bobbed around for nearly two weeks before it washed up on shore, and Burek says it's too decomposed⁴ to yield many useful samples.

BUREK: Because once we get inside the abdomen⁵, like, the kidneys and the liver are just going to be kind of liquefied.

HERZ: Before they get started, Burek and her crew get into chest waders, then pull on plastic gloves all the way up to their shoulders and put on purple rubber gloves over those. Then they slice through a 6-inch layer of blubber.

(SOUNDBITE OF KNIFE SLICING)

HERZ: Just from looking at it, Burek can tell it's underfed. That's also been the case with many of the other gray whales found dead along the West Coast this year. Because Alaska is at the tail end of the whales' 5,000-mile migration from Mexico at this time of year, more deaths are expected. John Calambokidis is a research biologist in Washington.

JOHN CALAMBOKIDIS: The level we've seen on the West Coast means Alaska should brace⁶ itself for probably some significantly elevated numbers of gray whale strandings.

HERZ: Right now, the gray whale population is healthy. It's recovered to 27,000 since whalers hunted them nearly to extinction⁷. Calambokidis says it's starting to look like that's as many as the whales' habitat can support. He says when the whales were feeding in the Arctic last summer, it looks like it may have been a bad year for their prey⁸. Researchers are looking at whether the whale deaths are a natural result of more animals competing for food in a limited area or if it could relate to climate change - things like warming ocean temperatures and less sea ice in the whale's feeding grounds.

Michael Milstein, a spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric⁹ Administration, says his agency is paying closer attention to annual summer surveys of the gray whales' feeding patterns.

MICHAEL MILSTEIN: The scientists that do those surveys are going back through their records and trying to understand if there was something unusual about when and where the whales were feeding.

HERZ: Scientists can also get useful data from dead whales if they wash up on shore, like this one near Anchorage. Burek, the veterinary pathologist, has finally gotten under the layer of blubber and into the whale's abdomen, which is swollen¹⁰ with gas and liquid.

BUREK: Oh, boy. I just - can I take a little break here?

HERZ: While the inside of the gray whale doesn't smell fresh, it turns out its organs are surprisingly intact.

BUREK: Oh, guess what that is? That's the kidney right there. Look at that kidney.

HERZ: Burek cuts off tiny chunks¹¹ of tissue and puts them into bags and vials for analysis later, potential clues for researchers trying to solve the mystery of what's happening with the gray whales. In Anchorage, I'm Nat Herz.

1 migration   

n.迁移，移居，（鸟类等的）迁徙

参考例句：

• Swallows begin their migration south in autumn.燕子在秋季开始向南方迁移。
• He described the vernal migration of birds in detail.他详细地描述了鸟的春季移居。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 carving   

n.雕刻品，雕花

参考例句：

• All the furniture in the room had much carving.房间里所有的家具上都有许多雕刻。
• He acquired the craft of wood carving in his native town.他在老家学会了木雕手艺。

4 decomposed   

已分解的，已腐烂的

参考例句：

• A liquid is decomposed when an electric current passes through it. 当电流通过时，液体就分解。
• Water can be resolved [decomposed] into hydrogen and oxygen. 水可分解为氢和氧。

5 abdomen   

n.腹，下腹(胸部到腿部的部分)

参考例句：

• How to know to there is ascarid inside abdomen?怎样知道肚子里面有蛔虫？
• He was anxious about an off-and-on pain the abdomen.他因时隐时现的腹痛而焦虑。

6 brace   

n. 支柱,曲柄,大括号; v. 绷紧,顶住,(为困难或坏事)做准备

参考例句：

• My daughter has to wear a brace on her teeth. 我的女儿得戴牙套以矫正牙齿。
• You had better brace yourself for some bad news. 有些坏消息,你最好做好准备。

7 extinction   

n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种

参考例句：

• The plant is now in danger of extinction.这种植物现在有绝种的危险。
• The island's way of life is doomed to extinction.这个岛上的生活方式注定要消失。

8 prey   

n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨

参考例句：

• Stronger animals prey on weaker ones.弱肉强食。
• The lion was hunting for its prey.狮子在寻找猎物。

9 atmospheric   

adj.大气的，空气的；大气层的；大气所引起的

参考例句：

• Sea surface temperatures and atmospheric circulation are strongly coupled.海洋表面温度与大气环流是密切相关的。
• Clouds return radiant energy to the surface primarily via the atmospheric window.云主要通过大气窗区向地表辐射能量。

10 swollen   

adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀

参考例句：

• Her legs had got swollen from standing up all day.因为整天站着，她的双腿已经肿了。
• A mosquito had bitten her and her arm had swollen up.蚊子叮了她，她的手臂肿起来了。

11 chunks   

厚厚的一块( chunk的名词复数 )； （某物）相当大的数量或部分

参考例句：

• a tin of pineapple chunks 一罐菠萝块
• Those chunks of meat are rather large—could you chop them up a bIt'smaller? 这些肉块相当大，还能再切小一点吗？