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  3. The residents of California’s Santa Monica Bay have some rather noisy neighbors—and they’re not happy about it. That is the conc

The residents of California’s Santa Monica Bay have some rather noisy neighbors—and they’re not happy about it. That is the conc

admin2012-07-05  50
问题     The residents of California’s Santa Monica Bay have some rather noisy neighbors—and they’re not happy about it. That is the conclusion of a new study which shows that blue whales feeding off the coast of California stop calling to each other when a nearby naval base powers up its sonar (声纳) for training exercises.
    It’s not exactly news that sonar can disturb whales. What’s different about this study is that it shows an underwater sound outside a whale’s voice range can still affect its calling behavior. Because the endangered blue whale may depend on communication to keep its family group together and alert them to the presence of food, the effects of that sonar are a serious concern.
    But it’s not only sonar that’s getting to them. When ships come by, sound of the engines falls within the blue whales’ vocalization range, which means the creatures have to raise their voices. Unsurprisingly, this sort of effect—like living inside a noisy, dark bar—is not ideal for intelligent and social animals trying to have a conversation.
    Luckily it’s not all bad news. Technology can help—if people are willing to pay for it. In terms of shipping noise, efforts are under way by the International Maritime Organization to develop and encourage the use of quieter engines on ships. Even the U. S. Navy is now working on the problem of ocean noise. In fact, over the last ten years the U. S. Navy has been the primary funder of marine mammal research on the planet.
    Some say this isn’t simply a conservation issue. It’s a moral one. Last month, a group of scientists and ethicists (伦理学家) presented a "Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans (鲸目动物)" to the largest science conference in the world, the AAAS meeting in Vancouver, Canada. The Declaration states that because of their intelligence and social complexity, whales and dolphins should be respected as non-human persons with a right to life. " We’ve had decades of work demonstrating what kinds of beings they are, what kind of brains they have," says Lori Marino, a senior lecturer in neuroscience and behavioral biology at Emory University, whose groundbreaking work has shown that dolphins, like humans, can recognize themselves in the mirror. Science, it seems, is telling us how undersea noise is affecting whales and dolphins. It also may be telling us why we should do something about it.  
Why do some people say it’s a moral issue to protect blue whales against noise?
选项 A、It is closely related to human moral standards.
B、Blue whales are intelligent animals like human.
C、It is a good way to show the morality of human.
D、Blue whales share the same planet with human.
答案B
解析 事实细节题。本题考查人们把保护蓝鲸当成道德问题的原因。定位句提到，这一问题是道德问题，有人提出因为蓝鲸具有智力和社会复杂性，因此它们应该被当做人类一样对待，它们的生存权应当受到尊重，故B)正确。A)“这一问题和人类的道德标准紧密相关”、C)“这是证明人类道德的好方法”和D)“蓝鲸和人类共享一个地球”在文中均未提到，故排除。
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