A female bottle-nosed dolphin with an artificial tail fin appeared in a special show at the Okinawa Exposition Commemorative Park on March 12, 2004. She jumped out of the water, reaching 3.5 meters high. The 2.71 meter and 225 kilogram dolphin named Fuji, estimated to be 35 years old, swung her silicon tail fin in the water and emerged into the air with a big splash. About 750 spectators cheered wildly. This was her first leap after losing her own fin. She lost 75 percent of her tail fin from a bacterial infectious disease in the fall of 2002. She was too discouraged to swim again. In July, 2003, the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium and major Japanese industrial rubber product maker Bridgestone jointly started developing an artificial tail fin for her. The development went gradually. The Churaumi Aquarium officials and the Bridgestone engineers wanted to help the dolphin jump high once again. A Churaumi Aquarium dolphin trainer, 26, deeply moved, said: "I never imagined her leaping again when she had her tail fin cut off. He added that the special show was only a one-time performance for that day but that they were planning to give her another opportunity to jump before spectators in the future. ◇ ◇ ◇ The follwing URLs show you the web pages that carry some pictures of Fuji's silicon tail fin. Please do visit the site to see what it is like. http://oki-churaumi.jp/info/blogs/archives/1133 http://oki-churaumi.jp/info/blogs/archives/984 http://oki-churaumi.jp/info/blogs/archives/4493 http://oki-churaumi.jp/info/blogs/archives/839 [Vocabulary] ・imagine [v -ing] She imagined walking into the office and handing in her resignation. Imagine earning that much money! [vn -ing] I can just imagine him saying that! [vn to inf] I had imagined her to be older than that. ・agony noun (pl. -ies) [U, C] extreme physical or mental pain: Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. It was agony not knowing where the children were. She waited in an agony of suspense. The worst agonies of the war were now beginning. Tell me now! Don’t prolong the agony (= make it last longer). It is inhuman to keep a man facing the agony of execution for so long. see pile v. Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (OALD) |
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