海豚的回家之路

河北 胡金瑩

主題語境：動物保護 篇幅：349詞 建議用時：7分鐘

1Every once in a while, we all need a helping hand.In early January, residents in Clearwater, Florida contacted the Clearwater Marine Aquarium about a dolphin hanging out in the creek（小溪）behind their homes.The dolphin was acting normally, but without contact with other animals, the sea-dwelling creature simply couldn't stay in the creek.

2Dolphins are highly social animals who need contact with others for their mental health.They're also federally protected from harassment, which tends to happen when people notice the animals in areas where they should not be.Not long ago, another dolphin named Izzy was stuck in a nearby canal, and eventually she couldn't hunt for herself because she'd become reliant on humans for food.She'd also been struck by boats,putting her in physical danger.Eventually, she was transported to the aquarium (水族館) because she could no longer live in the wild.

3The biologists in Clearwater wanted to avoid another Izzy type situation,so they made a plan to help this young dolphin find its way out of the narrow channel towards Tampa Bay.About 28 biologists from three different marine rescue groups formed a human chain to guide the animal out.

4“The goal was not to put hands on the animal,”explained Brittany Baldrica, a senior rescue biologist with the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.“The goal was to just be a barrierthat was novel to the animal, so we wanted to create a physical barrier as well as an auditory barrier.We had somebody behind us that was banging on a boat and speeding the engine up.Then we were splashing the water and moving forward towards the animal.We were giving the animal the option to swim through the bridge on its own.”

5The volunteers all stood shoulder-to-shoulder to create a barrier, splashing their hands to keep the animal from coming near them.It took some time to move down the creek as one unit, but it was all worthwhile when they finally guided the dolphin into the channel and watched the marine mammal swim off in the right direction.

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Ⅰ.Difficult sentence in the text

It took some time to move down the creek as one unit, but it was all worthwhile when they finally guided the dolphin into the channel and watched the marine mammal swim off in the right direction.他們作為一個整體，花了一些時間沿著小溪向下移動，但當他們最終引導海豚進入海峽并看著這只海洋哺乳動物朝著正確的方向游去時，這一切都是值得的。

【點石成金】本句是一個由but 連接的并列句。句中有兩個it，句首的it 作形式主語，真正的主語是后面的動詞不定式；句中的it 是代詞，指代前面的It took some time to...one unit。

Ⅱ.Text-centered chunks

hang out 閑逛；逗留

be stuck in 被困住

be struck by 被……撞擊

on one's own 靠自己的力量

speed up 加速；使加速