Hey! Half a year already!

Topic sentence: It has been almost half a year since bridging ended. 

First of all, time really flies, taking away my English grammar, vocabulary.....Secondly, It seems this is my first time to come here after bridging course. Maybe it is the pressure from exams that reminds me of my bridging course. Finally, bridging course was really a good time, although I didn't think so when I have it.

Well, here comes to the paragraph of conclusion. Actually I post this for no point, although writing this makes me kind of nervous because it is in English...I just wonder if there is anyone in our group who still checks his or this blogger group, anyone miss the life with a center of learning English or teaching English in some group 4. Also, long time no see the tutors, and long for a lunch or dinner with you at the beginning of next semester.

Essay done. Good night!!

The South Pacific Ocean

Recently, I have been watching a BBC documentary called "the south pacific ocean＂. It introduces many endangered species in the south pacific ocean, and explains how human activities influences those animals. Even though the survival of some of them are becoming more difficult, the beauty of them have deeply rooted in my mind. The most impressive animal for me is the dolphin, this kind of dolphin often appeare in the coast off New Zealand. The photographer shooted the animal above the sea. Every movement of the beautiful creature is fully displayed. Dolphins swim around the boat, and sometimes, they jump out of the water and spin in the air. They are indeed the ballerinas in the sea. The next animal I an going to write is not as lucky as those dolphins. The northeast penguins on the earth gose to some islands in south pacific for breeding. Unfortunately, tourism bring many alien species, some of them will threaten baby penguins. The photographer was intended to film how baby penguins grow up, but them found many dead penguins which were killed by fcats. Both the photographer and I feel so sad. Owning to the perciverance of documentary makers, they found a nest with two baby penguins finally. After watching the documentary, I realize that even though those animals are far away from me, it is still my duty to protect them. I will find practical way to make contribution for their survival.

Saving endangered species: your responsibility

      The last Passenger Pigeon died alone at the Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914; Caribbean Monk Seal was officially declared on June 6th, 2008; the last naturally born Pyrenean Ibex, named Celia, died on January 6th, 2000. The statistics I mentioned are just miniatures of the havoc that human’s behaviors caused on animal species. Sadly, the pace of extinction has been accelerating over the years.

      I have seen movies about massacre to dolphins happening at the small bay in Japan; it was a video secretly recorded by several volunteers. It showed that thousands of dolphins were killed at this bay every year and blood of dolphins dyed the sea into red color. When I saw the scene displayed in the movie, I was totally shocked. Animal species is dying out at an unprecedented speed due to human’s overfishing, over-exploitation and other excessive exploitation to nature. Human beings have to pay for what they gain from the nature and everyone should take the responsibility.

      To keep the stability of the nature, awareness of individual is required. Everyone should know that they have the obligation to protect the endangered species and prevent common species from becoming endangered as well. Fortunately, many countries have already realized the benefit of the ecological balance and the potential benefit of natural diversity. Many natural conservations were set up, NGOs such as WWF, Greenpeace etc. were found. These actions have exerted certain positive influence on preserving endangered animals, but that is far not enough. Saving lives of endangered species needs everyone’s effort. As a student, taking part in NGO may be a good choice and also an easy access to nature.

      Nature has kindly given its resources to human beings and now it is time to think about repaying. It is not only the government’s or NGO’s work, but also a work that everyone can take part in.

Chinese Sturgeon

The Chinese sturgeon, a member of the family Acipenseridae and the order Acipenseriformes, is an endangered species in China. This species has a long history, for it dates back to the same time of dinosaurs. Also, people sometimes call Chinese sturgeon living fossil because of its long history. It is also named as “national treasure”. And the sturgeon is also classified as “China’s Class One Protected Animals”.

The sturgeon is a species of fish, and a grown-up one can weigh 450 kg and measure up to 4 meters long. Every year, they will migrate more than 3200 km up the Yangtze River, which is the longest migration of any sturgeon in the world. It seems that every year they must take a tough journey for their species’ reproduction. Unfortunately, they are very sensitive to the noise on the river and vulnerable to the boat propellers. Over these years, the number of Chinese Sturgeon has decreased largely because of human’s activities. For example, overhunting and poaching.

Over these years, there are many studies on Chinese Sturgeon in China have been conducted to help people know more about them, and many actions have been taken to protect them. For example, the Chinese Sturgeon Museum was built to use some technology to help them reproduce and breed their children. But the most significant measure is that people are highly aware of the preciousness of the Chinese Surgeon and try their best to protect them. As ordinary people, we can stop killing them, and we can stop destroy their home for our own benefits. 

Never be apathetic to our nature

The extracting of bear bile caused heated discussion among Chinese people in recent days. “During the short period of extracting bear bile, the bears look very comfortable.”; “You are not the bear, how could you know that they are painful.” These two sentences were come from the head of the China Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the head of one company which extracts the bear bile. I could not find a word to describe how I feel when I heard of what they said, is it angry, shocked, or shame? Though from their previous announcement which argues that it may be good for bears to extract their bile, some opponents of the extracting of bear bile still find the evidence of the permanent injuries to bears because of the extraction. Personally, another thing I cannot accept is the word “comfortable” they used. It is true that I am not the person who can feel the painful when bears are doing bile extraction, but they are also not the persons who can feel the so-called comfortable of bears.
During this heated discussion, what I saw are some endangered persons who only concentrate on their reputation and interests. They earned their money at the expense of our natural resources, and I believe that one day they will ruin themselves by what they have done to nature. It is not the single case to show the confliction between the development of economy and the balance of nature. It is a crucial time for people to calm down and think deep about the relationship between money and nature, one was created by human beings, on the other hand, one supports our human beings.

Zoo? A killer of wild animals?

  Have you ever imagined a situation that we can only see wild animals in the zoo? These endangered animals are sure to be fed well. It may seem that they have a good life. However, they are always kept in cages, which is a lager disadvantage of zoos.

  I felt impressive when I saw the video about zoo. Animals that kept in zoos only can wander in a small place to kill their time. What a sad thing!

  Kept in cages, wild animals will lose their wild natural abilities to hunt for food and other abilities. Even for a human-being, he or she may lose some skills if one does not practice them for a long time. People usually keep endangered wild animals in a small cage, in which way they think they can protect wild animals. However, they are pushing endangered wild animals towards an edge of extinction. Wild animals will lose their skills to hunt after being separated from wild environment for a long time. They are far from their wild habitats. They can only feed on artificial food or dead animals, so that they cannot have chance to hunt in the wild. Even though one day they may be released, they may not survive in their former in habitats.

  What I mentioned before may become a circle. More wild animals are kept in zoos, more of the may lose their natural abilities. Then more of them lose their natural abilities, more of them need to be protected. Then more of them are kept in zoos. As time goes by, the condition of wild animals may become worse.

  When wild animals are not wild any more, it makes no sense to protect them by keeping them in zoos. Making natural reserves may be a better way to really protect wild animals. They can have a larger living place and will not lose their natural abilities.

Central Rock Rat

Last Thursday we had an activity in which we introduced some endangered species. Our group was taking charge of endangered mammals and we introduced pandas. However, I found that many of you were interested in central rock rat. To be honest, I was also interested in it since I had never heard about it. Thus, I want to give you some introduction of central rock rat today.

First of all, I want to introduce its appearance. Picture 1 is a photo of central rock rat. Frankly speaking, I did not see any differences from a normal rat (Picture 2). To distinguish these two rats, I searched in http://www.australianfauna.com. According to this website, “Thick yellow fur … is present. The feet are a similar colour as the underbelly. The average head and body measurement of the central rock rat is 120mm …Central rock rats have round ears and a roman nose.” which made me more confused. After checking several websites, I concluded that there is little difference between them and we can just ignore it.

Picture 1 

 

 Picture 2

Next, I was going to introduce its nesting habits, but I read they can only be found in “the western portions of the MacDonnell Ranges of Australia”. Moreover, due to the hard environment, it is hard for humans to investigate its habits. As a result, we do not know much about it until now, even when it is going to extinct.

In conclusion, central rock rat is endangered species and we have not known it much yet. We have to save them and care about them.