On a hot summer weekend, Jorge Ayub saw the public beach north of Boston already crowded with nearly 1 million people drawn to the annual sand sculpture festival. Traffic on the nearby road was heavy, bands played music loudly, and later that night fireworks would light up the beach.

And on the sand were four pairs of tiny shorebirds. These chicks(小鸟) were still too young to fly and a precious addition to the national endeavor to save a bird once down to 139 pairs in Massachusetts. It was Mr. Ayub’s job. “Everyone made it,” Ayub, a coastal ecologist reported at the end of the long weekend over the nests.

Once common, piping plovers(笛鸻) were hunted and then squeezed out of their habitats(栖息地) by coastal development until, in 1986, the federal government listed the Atlantic Coastal birds as threatened. The bird’s recovery has been halting. After three decades, the Atlantic population stands just under the 2,000-pair goal set by federal law.

But the star has been Massachusetts, which has seen plovers increase to 687pairs from 139 pairs in 1986. One reason for that: “chick-sitting” in which conservationists sometimes spend all day watching over the birds.

That progress has made Massachusetts the only East Coast state that decided to relax some Endangered Species Act restrictions: for example, to reduce the fenced-off areas and vehicle limits that have annoyed residents（居民）.

“Look at the stretch(一片土地)，”Anyb says. “We had six nesting pairs between here and that bathhouse 600 yards away. By regulation, each nest should have 100 yards of fencing. We could have put up fencing and closed the beach all the way to the bathhouse.”

Instead, the plovers are surrounded in much smaller areas by “symbolic fencing”. None of the 52 seawall entrances to the beach are closed. “If we put up too much fencing, people will be upset, and they are going to destroy it or walk right through the nesting areas,” Ayub says. “By opening the beach, people are happier and the species does better.”

Chinese Opera Cartoon Festival Kicks off Thursday

http//www. Chinadaily.com.cn 2021-02-02

An art festival that calls attention to Chinese opera cartoons will kick off in Beijing on Thursday, Feb 4 and run until Feb 26. The festival is prepared by the Chaoyang Cultural Center and the Culture and Travel Office of Chaoyang, Beijing. The staff members are hoping the festival will get more foreigners and young people to learn more about traditional Chinese culture.

Classical Chinese operas, chosen from 360 kinds of operas in China, are made into cartoons, and will be shown to the public. The cartoon characters look lively and cute, which can quickly be loved by the public. Activities will also be held during the festival, such as showing the primary posters and writings, and opera costumes.

Since the festival is mainly held online, people can take part in the activities by watching videos on online short-video platforms (平台) like Douyin and Huoshan Video, known as Tik Tok and Vigo Video outside China.

People can also enjoy a 360-degree wide view of the activities online. By clicking a mouse of a computer or using a mobile phone, people can choose wherever they like to view the activities at home.

BEIJING—Twelve years after joining the national team. Fan Kexin finally stood up on the highest podium (领奖台) at the Olympic rink (溜冰场). Together with teammates, the 28-year-old new Olympic champion won the mixed team relay gold medal on February 5 at the Beijing Winter Olympics. It was also the first gold for the host country at the Beijing Games, which received congratulations from the central leadership.

Fan, the leading figure of the Chinese women’s short track speed skating team, has long dreamed of winning Olympic gold. “I’ve been waiting for this gold medal for 12 years. I’ve waited for it for so long,” Fan said after the victory, in tears. “I have always believed in the team. From the day I entered the national team, I have always believed in my teammates.”

Fan was born in September 1993 in Qitaihe, a city in Northeast China’s Heilongjiang province, which is a cradle for a number of world-famous short track speed skaters, including China’s first Winter Olympic gold medalist Yang Yang and four-time Olympic champion Wang Meng.

Fan didn’t turn to skating as a child, but chose dancing like many other girls. However, the relatively high training costs ended her hope of becoming a dancer, as her family ran into financial difficulties.

Since 2003, when Fan was selected by her first coach, Ma Qingzhong, to train as a short track speed skater, she worked hard at training, getting up every day at 4 am for a one-hour training session before going to school. “We didn’t have to call her in the morning as she could get up herself,” Fan’s mother, Nie Gulling, recalled. “She was always reluctant to leave the rink and wanted to train more.”

Fan’s career was put into a dangerous situation when she was diagnosed with severe anemia (贫血) in 2008. Her parents asked her to give up the sport, but Fan insisted on carrying on and returned to the rink the following year.

The Olympic gold in Beijing came after Fan’s persistence (毅力), as well as that of the whole team. “We’ve been experiencing tough training in the past four years. Every day when we finished training, we’d have blood in our throats. But at the moment we won, I thought it was all worth it. We’ve made it,” Fan said after the victory.