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Amy is a biologist
working at a marine (海洋的) park. These
kinds of parks provide fun and education for tens of thousands of people each
year.
Amy takes care of many
animals in the park, but she also does important research. As she observes the animals that she
looks after, she learns more about their needs and behavior. This information
helps the animals in the park, but it can also be used to protect other members
of the species(物种) in the wild.
It's hard work to look
after these animals. Their needs often change according to different hours of
the day. So Amy must depend on her science knowledge and good number sense to
help her make the right decisions all day long.
Even though dolphins
spend much of their time underwater, they are mammals. This means that they
must come to the surface to take in air. Dolphins give birth to their young.
They're not hatched from eggs. Just like all other mammals, mother dolphins
must nurse, or feed milk to their babies.
Amy and her team know
this first﹣hand. One of their dolphins
recently gave birth. A baby dolphin is not small, either. It was almost 1 meter
long the day it was born. A big dolphin usually eats about 4% of its body weight
in food every day. Amy knows that a mother dolphin that is nursing needs twice
the food. So when the baby dolphin was born, Amy immediately doubled the mother's
food every day.