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  3. The National Marine Fisheries Service announced on March 16, 1999, that it was extending Endangered Species Act (ESA) protection

The National Marine Fisheries Service announced on March 16, 1999, that it was extending Endangered Species Act (ESA) protection

admin2010-03-25  75
问题     The National Marine Fisheries Service announced on March 16, 1999, that it was extending Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections to nine populations of wild salmon and steelhead in Washington and Oregon. The move is believed to be the broadest application of the law in its 26-year history and the first listing to affect urban regions.
    Wild salmon, once hugely abundant in the Pacific Northwest and still a recognized symbol of the region,  have declined sharply in numbers in recent decades as development, logging, and hydroelectric dams have degraded the fish’s habitat. Wild salmon are salmon that were never bred in a hatchery. Most Pacific salmon and steelhead (a type of large, seagoing rainbow trout) need clear, gravel-bottomed streams and rivers when spawning and during the early stages of life. According to the Fisheries Service, on the Columbia River, chum salmon runs are between 1,500 and 4,000 fish annually, compared to as many as 500,000 before 1944. On the Willamette River, steelhead runs are the lowest in 30 years.
    Eight of the nine groupings listed were identified as threatened (declining and likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future). They are the Puget Sound chinook salmon, the lower Columbia River chinook salmon, the upper Willamette River chinook salmon, the Columbia River chum salmon, the Hood Canal summer-run chum salmon,
the Lake Ozette sockeye salmon, the upper Willamette River steelhead, and the middle Columbia River steelhead.
    One population, the upper Columbia River spring-run chinook salmon, was designated as endangered, which the ESA defines as likely to become extinct within the foreseeable future if preventive action is not taken. The Fisheries Service said it would wait until September 1999 to decide on whether to extend ESA protection to salmon in southern Oregon and California.
    How the listings will affect urban areas such as Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon is uncertain, but new regulations are expected to be extensive and costly. They could include restrictions on future development, limits on pesticide use and agricultural runoff, logging and fishing limits, dam redesign or removal, pollution controls, and sewage treatment upgrades. These regulations would affect the nearly 5.5 million people living in the Seattle and Portland metropolitan areas combined.
    Many observers said that the initial public response to the listing would be favorable.. The fish still holds great economic and cultural importance for Native Americans in the region and is widely viewed as an environmental icon. This contrasts with the bitter fight over the last major ESA listing in the region, the 1990 protection of the spotted owl, which hurt the logging industry and many timber communities.
    The listings were scheduled to go into effect in May 1999, but regulations would initially apply only on federal lands or on projects requiring a federal permit. Federal officials have pledged tO work with state, local, and private interests to formulate acceptable plans to protect and preserve the threatened fish. State and municipal legislation is already in the works in many cases, but these measures are highly controversial. Real estate and other business interests have protested that they are too strict, and environmental groups have called them too weak. The regulations will likely end up being decided by the courts.
According to the introductions about the endangered fish, we can infer that mostPacific salmon and steelhead
选项 A、always live in rivers and streams without going to seas.
B、always live in seas and oceans without going to rivers.
C、live in rivers when young and live in seas when grown-up.
D、live in seas when young and live in rivers when grown-up.
答案C
解析 从第二段中，我们看到这样一句：Most Pacific salmon and steelhead(a type of large，seagoing rainbow trout)need clear，gravel-bottomed streams and rivers when spawning and during the early stages of life．也就是说，鲑鱼需要在清澈的河流里产卵，小鲑鱼生命的早期也要在那里度过，然后才游向大海。
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