Animal rescuer uses drones to save hurt animals無人機拯救受傷動物

湖南 羅愛明

動物救助者和電影攝影師道格拉斯·斯隆在自然災(zāi)害后使用無人機拯救受傷的動物。

1Animal rescuer and cinematographer(電影攝影師)Douglas Thron's passion for animals began when he was a little kid.“I started rescuing orphaned baby animals,” Thron tells Yahoo Life.“And I wanted to be a wildlife cinematographer.”

2At the time of the Paradise fire in California in 2018,Thron was working as a cinematographer filming a man who was rescuing cats using an infrared(紅外線的)handheld camera.The camera used heat to detect the animals at night.Thron and the man talked about how incredible it would be to put one on a drone(無人機)to detect animals more easily.“The animal's body temperature will glow on the screen and you can pick them out amongst the rubble,”explains Thron.

3The first animal Thron ever rescued was a dog in the Bahamas after a category 5 hurricane hit,which “wiped out hundreds of houses”,he says.Thron tested out putting an infrared scope on a drone and found the dog“l(fā)iterally in the middle of the giant debris pile where hundreds of houses had been smashed”,he says. “I flew the drone over and I found him.I was able to rescue him.And nobody claimed him after 30 days,so I adopted him,and he's a super wonderful dog.”

4Thron adds that he's basically been “going non-stop since then”.His TV show,Doug to the Rescue,shows some of his heart-warming animal rescues,including after Hurricane Laura in Louisiana in 2020 and after fires in Northern California and Oregon.Thron also helped rescue koalas after fires destroyed parts of Australia in 2020,using infrared-equipped drones for the first time there to help locate the animals.

5Thron's dream is to one day have an animal rescue ranch where he can train others on flying drones and“hopefully make these infrared drones as popular for rescuing animals as helicopters are for rescuing people after a disaster”,he says.

Reading Check

Choose the best answers according to the text

Inference 1.What inspired Thron's using infrared-equipped drones to save hurt animals?

A.His big dream. B.Hurt animals in need.

C.More effective results. D.Working as a cinematographer.

Detail 2.What can we know about the dog Thron rescued?

A.It probably had no owner before.

B.It lived with Thron for 30 days.

C.It was rescued out of fires.

D.It was under a house when found.

Inference 3.What can be inferred about Thron from the last two paragraphs?

A.He wished to use helicopters to save animals.

B.He also rescued many people after disasters.

C.He had many volunteers working with him.

D.He once participated in a rescue abroad.

Inference 4.Which of the following words can best describe Thron?

A.Courageous and calm. B.Enthusiastic and kind.

C.Cooperative and cautious. D.Ambitious and professional.

Language Study

Ⅰ.Analyze the difficult structure in the text

At the time of the Paradise fire in California in 2018,Thron was working as a cinematographer filming a man who was rescuing cats using an infrared handheld camera.2018年加利福尼亞州天堂鎮(zhèn)火災(zāi)發(fā)生時，斯隆作為一名電影攝影師，正在拍攝一名使用手持紅外攝像機救貓的男子。

【點石成金】本句是一個主從復(fù)合句，句子的主語是Thron。who引導定語從句，修飾先行詞a man。

Ⅱ.Memorize some text-centered chunks

on the screen在屏幕上

pick out辨認出；分辨出；挑出

wipe out消滅；摧毀

test out對……進行徹底檢驗

since then從那時起；以后；從此一直