Crow“ employees” in French theme park法國主題公園里的烏鴉“雇員”

鄭玉峰

法國的一個主題公園“聘用”了6只經過訓練的烏鴉當“環衛工人”。當烏鴉把撿來的垃圾丟入特制的木箱時，木箱就會彈出鳥食作為獎勵。

主題語境：動物 篇幅：325詞 建議用時：6分鐘

1 Corvids （鴉類） are known to be remarkably intelligentanimals. These birds are good at usingtools， can plan ahead， solve puzzles and evenhold grudges （怨恨）. Some corvids＇ brains havereally high neuronal densities and a brain regioncalled the nidopallium caudolaterale， or NCLwhich is believed to act like our prefrontalcortex—the problem?solving part of the human brain.

2 Rooks are members of the crow family. Six rooks—Boubou， Bamboo， Bill， Black， Bricoleand Baco—were trained to pick up litter after people. They are employees of thePuy du Fou park， a history?themed park located in Les Epesses， a four?hour drive fromParis， France.

3 The idea to train rooks originally came from the parks falconry （鷹獵） show， duringwhich trained corvids would pick up roses and bring them to a“ princess” in a castle.This got Christophe Gaborit， project manager at the park， thinking whether he＇d be ableto teach rooks to perform a similar task—like picking up cigarette butts and othersmall pieces of trash and putting them in a box.

4 When the birds placed a piece of trash in a box， their trainer would pull a board to reveala delicious snack for them. At last， the rooks started to associate tidying up withfood， and were happy to pick up small pieces of trash in order to get rewards. The birdswould sometimes try to trick Gaborit and instead of disposing of garbage， would insteaddrop pieces of wood into the box.

5 “We don＇t want to make them machines，” the president of the Puy du Fou park， Nicolasde Villiers， said“. They don＇t play the game if they work too much.”

6 The birds“ work” under supervision of a falconer， who makes sure that people dontthrow garbage around just to watch the rooks pick it up. Instead， Boubou， Bamboo， Bill，Black， Bricole and Baco are there to educate the park visitors about littering.“ Natureitself can teach us to take care of the environment，” Villiers said.

Detail

1. What is the function of NCL in the corvids brain？

A. Finding out directions.

B. Solving problems.

C. Keeping balance in flight.

D. Sensing dangers.

Inference

2. What did a trained corvid do at the falconry show？

A. It delivered food to a place.

B. It picked up litter on the ground.

C. It delivered an object to a person.

D. It escaped from its natural enemy.

Inference

3. Why did the trainer pull a board during the training？

A. To offer a reward.

B. To play a trick.

C. To give an order.

D. To send a signal.

Gist

4. What does the text mainly talk about？

A. Birds learn to use tools to obtain food.

B. Birds play tricks on their trainer for rewards.

C. Crows were taught to clean up trash at a French park.

D. Corvids proved themselves to be intelligent animals.

Language Study

Ⅰ. Difficult sentence in the text

This got Christophe Gaborit， project manager at the park， thinking whether hed beable to teach rooks to perform a similar task—like picking up cigarette butts and othersmall pieces of trash and putting them in a box. 這讓公園的項目經理克里斯托夫·加博里特思考他是否能夠教禿鼻烏鴉執行類似的任務——比如撿起煙頭和其他小垃圾并將它們放入盒子中。

【點石成金】本句是一個主從復合句。project manager at the park是同位語，whether引導的是賓語從句。

Ⅱ. Text?centered chunks

be good at 擅長

perform a task 執行任務

associate...with 把……與……聯系在一起

tidy up 整理；收拾