Pre-reading

Question: How many elephants are there in Sri Lanka in the 19th century?

Intensive Reading

Elephants in Sri Lanka are sick. They have nothing to eat.

斯里兰卡的大象生病了。他们没有东西吃。

14,000 elephants live in Sri Lanka in the 19th century. There are 6,000 elephants in 2011. One problem is that people kill many of the animals illegally. Another problem is the quality of water and land is getting worse.

19世纪，斯里兰卡生活着14000头大象。2011年有6000头大象。一个问题是人们非法杀害了许多动物。另一个问题是水和土地的质量越来越差。

Animals come closer to farms and homes. Farmers are angry. Elephants eat their mangoes and coconuts. Farmers build electric fences around their farms. Electric fences hurt or kill the animals.

动物更接近农场和家庭。农民们很生气。大象吃农民的芒果和椰子。农民们在他们的农场周围筑起了电栅栏。电栅栏会伤害甚至会杀死动物。

Then elephants get to landfills. A landfill is a place with a lot of rubbish or trash. Elephants eat plastic. They eat too much. They die.

于是大象就去了垃圾填埋场。垃圾填埋场是有很多垃圾和废弃物的地方。大象们吃塑料。它们吃了太多塑料。于是它们死了。

Notes:

1.illegally：adv. 非法地，不合法地。形容词形式是illegal，非法收入可以说：illegal income。

2.quality：n. 质量，品质。高质量可以表达为high quality。注意和数量“quantity”做区分。

3.electric fences：电围栏，牧地和家畜场周围架设的带有金属线的围栏，带有弱电流，防止动物靠近。

4.rubbish：n. 垃圾，废弃物。“garbage”也是垃圾的含义。垃圾分类：garbage sorting。

Exercise:

请根据文章内容，回答下述问题：

List three reasons why there are fewer and fewer elephants.