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  3. Canadian authorities relayed that suspicion to the U. S. Coast Guard, which

Canadian authorities relayed that suspicion to the U. S. Coast Guard, which

游客2024-08-07  35
问题     Canadian authorities relayed that suspicion to the U. S. Coast Guard, which dispatched a cutter to intercept the vessel. After a two-week chase, the cutter’s crew finally boarded the Cao Yu 6025, a stateless ship, south of Japan. In the hold, they found damning evidence: 110 tons of tuna and shark fins, and a drift gillnet almost 20 kilometers long--an indiscriminate killer of marine life banned on high seas under an international agreement.
    Out of sight, and mostly out of mind, the oceans are under siege. Scientists from around the world are reporting global disturbances in the seas that threaten to bring Richard Cashin’s grim warning home to every Canadian household. From the polar seas to the tropics, fish populations have collapsed or teeter on the brink. In a third of the Pacific, plankton that form the foundation of the marine food chain are vanishing. In every corner of the planet, increasing temperatures are obliterating some species, while driving others into unfamiliar waters.  As science scrambles to make sense of uneven data, evidence points to an alarming conclusion, the sea, the cradle of life, is dying.
    The killers are numerous. The most obvious, global over fishing, harvests 70 per cent of the world’s species faster than they can reproduce themselves. But the scientific community is not even sure that is the worst menace to the seas. Other major threats: human pollution, including an estimated 700 million gallons of toxic chemicals dumped into the sea each year, and global warming, widely attributed to industrial production of so-called greenhouse gases, which appears to be affecting ocean temperatures.
    Sharply pricier seafood is only the mildest consequence; others are far more serious. In many parts of the world, fishing jobs have disappeared. On Canada’s East Coast, 26,000 unemployed former fish workers drew income from the federal government’s Atlantic Ground fish Strategy--15,000 from Newfoundland alone--until its $1.9 billion in funding ran out in August. Far worse, developing countries dependent on marine protein confront the risk of mass starvation. In many regions, rival national claims to the seas’ diminishing harvest hold potential for armed conflict. More terrifying still is the specter of ecological Armageddon, as the oceans lose the capacity to generate the oxygen on which life itself depends.
    For too many species, extinction has already come. Half a century ago, 600,000 barn door skate swam North America’s Atlantic seaboard. Never intentionally fished, they nonetheless frequently became ensnared in nets or on hooks. By the 1970s, scientists could find no more than 500 skate throughout its previous range. Now, they can’t find any. "If bald eagles were as common as robins and then disappeared, someone would notice," says biologist Ransom Myers of Hallifax’s Dalhousie University. "In the ocean, no one knows. No one cares. "
    Belatedly, a handful of governments and others have begun to notice, to care and to act, moving tentatively to rein in the worst abuses of the seas. The patrol that spotted the Cao Yu was one of six that Canada donates each year to enforce an international ban on drift nets, blamed for killing dolphins, sharks, turtles, and seabirds, in addition to their intended catch. On September 1, the federal government designated two protected marine habitats at Race Rocks and Gabriola Passage, British Columbia--the first in a promised chain of preserves in Canadian waters where fishing will be banned. On the same day, an international commission concluded three years of study by urging coastal nations to bury their differences and form a world authority to regulate fishing beyond the 200-mile (370-killometer) economic zones of individual states. [br] ______ are regarded as the foundation of the marine food chain.
选项
答案 plankton
解析 文中第二段提到…plankton that form the foundation of the marine food chain are vanishing，即作为海洋食物链的基础的浮游生物正在消失。
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