OH1, a crow-sized seabird, touched down just off the Maryland coast on April 18, completing a migration from Argentina. Soon, more terns (燕鸥) joined OH1, and nesting season was officially underway.
The common terns had become uncommon in Maryland until conservationists and scientists gave the birds, listed as endangered in the state, an artificial wooden raft (筏子). This is one of the birds’ last toeholds in the state.
Every spring for the last three years, staff at the Maryland Coastal Bays Program (MCBP), have pulled the nesting raft into the water of Chincoteague Bay, a narrow slice of ocean situated between the state’s mainland and a chain of barrier islands. The bay was once rich with the kind of nesting habitat seabirds need: small sandy islands where predators (捕食者) are rare and bushes provide shade to flightless chicks on hot summer days. But over the last century, due to coastal development and sea level rise, those islands have disappeared. And so did the terns. By 2020, there were only 60 nesting pairs left.
Initially intended as a temporary solution, the rafts have not only stopped the common tern’s population decline — they’ve completely reversed it. In 2021, 23 pairs of tern s nested on the platform; in 2022, 155 sets of parents hatched 140 chicks.
Figuring out the formula for the birds’ success has been an ongoing process. Dave Brinker, a regional ecologist, says that observing the birds each year “helps us get more terns on the rafts.”
For example, during the first year the raft contained only some tiny wooden shelves intended to provide shade to the baby birds. But the adult terns used the chick shelters like fence lines, outlining their territory. “A natural habitat will have grass to provide that natural geographic separation,” Brinker says. “So the next year we added plastic grass to break up the visual landscape.”
While the nesting platform has become a life raft for the tern population, it remains a temporary solution. The team hopes ultimately to convince the state to rebuild the lost islands.
【小题1】Why did scientists put the nesting raft into the water of Chincoteague Bay?| A．The weather there is warmer. |
| B．It is the only bay left for seabirds. |
| C．There are visitors waiting to see terns. |
| D．The environment is suitable for terns to produce. |
| A．Recorded. | B．Changed. | C．Ended. | D．Employed. |
| A．To introduce terns’ natural habitat. | B．To explain ecologists’ ongoing work. |
| C．To point out the living habits of terns. | D．To show the construction of rafts. |
| A．Terns in Maryland Are in Danger |
| B．Various Measures Are Taken to Save Seabirds |
| C．Threatened Seabirds Get a Life Raft in Maryland |
| D．Rafts Are Becoming Terns’ Permanent Settlements |
