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  3. This is the incredible story of a mother’ s journey to keep her family alive. Echo is a wise elephant matriarch in her sixties.

This is the incredible story of a mother’ s journey to keep her family alive. Echo is a wise elephant matriarch in her sixties.

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问题    This is the incredible story of a mother’ s journey to keep her family alive. Echo is a wise elephant matriarch in her sixties. She lives in Southern Kenya alongside fifteen hundred other wild African elephants. As the oldest female and head of the family, Echo must guide four generations of her relatives through the cruel famine that follows the failure of the latest rains, protect them from attack by lions, and keep them away from growing conflict with angry Maasai farmers. Observing her as they have for the past four decades are American scientist Cynthia Moss and her team from the Amboseli Trust for Elephants. Echo leads her family out of harm’ s way, steers clear of battling tuskers, prevents clashes with neighbours over water, crops or grazing, and avoids natural calamities like deadly mud traps. As the months pass, she must prevent her family splitting under pressure, and finally bring new babies into the world with the best chance of survival.

   In Kenya’ s Amboseli National Park, Echo keeps watch over her large family. The African Elephant Conservation Trust has followed her life for more than 30 years. Echo is sensitive and caring when with her family, but becomes fearless when threatened by animal or man. Her leadership gualities are admirable as she guides her family through danger.
   When Echo was first found and studied by the Conservation Trust, she was 23 years old. Having just survived the deaths of the more senior members of the herd, she had adopted a motherly role for seven of her family. Once, when her 10-day-old calf was kidnapped by other elephants, Echo encouraged three adult females from her own herd to help her to track and attack the enemy and successfully rescued the baby. Poachers, hunters, famine and drought have all taken their toll on Echo ’ s extended family, yet thanks to her successful leadership through many difficulties, the herd has now grown to 27 members of different ages.
   Meanwhile, Echo has become world famous, thanks to three films about her life and behaviour, by award-winning film-maker Martyn Colbeck. His work has changed public perception of elephants by demonstrating the high level of intelligence and social behaviour of these complex creatures. The respect and interest generated by the films have helped to save this species, which at one time was threatened with extinction. Recent research by the Conservation Trust has also revealed valuable information about birth and death rates and the fact that elephants communicate at a very sophisticated level. They celebrate birth, have lifelong friendships and even mourn the death of family members.
   The population in Kenya fell from 130,000 in 1973 to less than 20,000 in 1989 , a loss of 85 %. The reason for this disastrous decline was mainly because elephants were hunted intensively for their ivory tusks. Destruction of habitat made the problem worse.
   It isn’t all bad news for African elephants, however. In the Amboseli National Park they have been increasing steadily in numbers. In this protected area of 150 square miles in Southern Kenya, they can live relatively undisturbed in a natural habitat—because the presence of researchers and tourists has kept poachers away and, equally importantly, the local Masai people have supported the project. Unlike other places in Africa, where hunting and poaching still take place, here the elephant family structure is being preserved and the population spans the whole range, from newborn calves to adults as old as Echo.
Questions 66 ~ 70
Answer the following questions with the information given in the passage.
What caused the disastrous decline in Kenya’ s elephant population between 1970s and 1980s?
选项
答案Intensive elephant hunting for ivory tusks and destruction of habitat．
解析 文章倒数第二段提到，肯尼亚的大象数量灾难性下降的主要原因是大象因其象牙而被大量猎杀以及栖息地的破坏。由此可知本题答案。
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本试题收录于： A类竞赛（研究生）题库大学生英语竞赛（NECCS）分类
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A类竞赛（研究生）

大学生英语竞赛（NECCS）

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