美国国家公共电台 NPR Yellowstone Bison Release Launches Criminal Investigation

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Send an alert. Missing - dozens of bison. Last seen together, two holding pens at Yellowstone National Park. Authorities say the animals escaped when someone used bolt cutters to open up a fence. As Yellowstone Public Radio's Nate Hegyi reports, the park wants to find out who's responsible.

NATE HEGYI, BYLINE¹: It's a windy and unseasonably warm winter day in Yellowstone National Park in Montana. Spokesperson Morgan Warthin is standing² in the middle of a massive empty valley.

MORGAN WARTHIN: Yellowstone is, like, so big. Where do you begin to look?

HEGYI: She's searching for any of the 52 bison that were set free in mid-January. That's when the National Park Service discovered their holding pens had been broken into. Now the bison are scattered³ across an area larger than Delaware, and officials have launched a criminal investigation⁴ to find out what happened.

RICK WALLEN: I didn't believe it when I was first told.

HEGYI: That's park bison biologist Rick Wallen. He says finding these animals won't be easy because there are literally⁵ thousands of bison in Yellowstone. And the only thing that sets the escaped animals apart is a tiny ear tag, which can be hard to spot from long distances.

WARTHIN: Bison, in the wintertime, are incredibly furry⁶ animals. And so the fur, being so thick, covers up those tags. So it makes it very difficult to find the tag.

HEGYI: Before the bison went missing, Yellowstone Park officials hoped to send them to a nearby Indian reservation in Montana. It was part of an effort to help the animals avoid what's become an annual and controversial slaughter⁷ of bison from Yellowstone. See, over the past decade, the park - under court order - has sent hundreds of bison to be killed almost every year because nearby ranchers fear the animals could infect their cattle with a disease called brucellosis. It can cause pregnant cows to abort⁸ their young. However, there's never been a confirmed case of bison passing on brucellosis to cattle in the wild. Biologist Rick Wallen says the fear is exaggerated. But ranching⁹ is also big business in Big Sky Country.

So the park service hoped they could save some bison otherwise headed to slaughter by first quarantining them and then creating a new herd¹⁰ on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. The animals lived in the holding pens for more than a year while the park service worked with Montana and the USDA to get the pens approved as a quarantine. Then, Warthin says, someone cut the fence.

WARTHIN: A lot of hard work was put into testing these animals. And all that work, all that effort is gone.

HEGYI: Now the question is who allowed these animals to escape. Rick Wallen says he suspects animal rights activists¹¹ could be involved.

WALLEN: Folks that hate seeing wild bison contained in fenced facilities.

HEGYI: Folks like Chris Hurley, a coordinator¹² with the Buffalo¹³ Field Campaign. Hurley's got a bison patch on his jacket with e pluribus unum written underneath¹⁴. He says his group had nothing to do with the animals' escape.

CHRIS HURLEY: Something like that from the campaign would be kind of detrimental¹⁵ to anything we're trying to achieve.

HEGYI: That being said, he's kind of happy someone cut the animals loose. Hurley says all Yellowstone bison should roam free.

HURLEY: Once they're inside of that facility, they're never going to be wild animals again. After years of domestication¹⁶ and being fed and being watered just to be shipped to end up on lands behind a fence somewhere is just insulting to this, which is our national mammal.

HEGYI: Park officials say they've spotted¹⁷ some of the missing bison more than five miles away from the holding pens. But they won't round them up like cattle because it's too far away. Instead, they hope the bison return on their own. For NPR News, I'm Nate Hegyi in Mammoth¹⁸ Hot Springs, Wyo.

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1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

3 scattered   

adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的

参考例句：

• Gathering up his scattered papers,he pushed them into his case.他把散乱的文件收拾起来，塞进文件夹里。

4 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

5 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

6 furry   

adj.毛皮的；似毛皮的；毛皮制的

参考例句：

• This furry material will make a warm coat for the winter.这件毛皮料在冬天会是一件保暖的大衣。
• Mugsy is a big furry brown dog,who wiggles when she is happy.马格斯是一只棕色大长毛狗，当她高兴得时候她会摇尾巴。

7 slaughter   

n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀

参考例句：

• I couldn't stand to watch them slaughter the cattle.我不忍看他们宰牛。
• Wholesale slaughter was carried out in the name of progress.大规模的屠杀在维护进步的名义下进行。

8 abort   

v.使流产，堕胎；中止；中止(工作、计划等)

参考例句：

• The captain instructed them to abort the mission.上尉指示他们中止执行任务。
• With this button the user can abort the audio sequence.用户可以用该按钮终止音频序列。

9 ranching   

adj.放牧的

参考例句：

• They cleared large tracts of forest for farming, logging and ranching. 他们清除了大片的森林以经营农耕、采伐与畜牧。
• This is a trade center in a ranching and oil-producing region. 这是一个牧场与产油区的贸易中心。

10 herd   

n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起

参考例句：

• She drove the herd of cattle through the wilderness.她赶着牛群穿过荒野。
• He had no opinions of his own but simply follow the herd.他从无主见，只是人云亦云。

11 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 coordinator   

n.协调人

参考例句：

• The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, headed by the Emergency Relief Coordinator, coordinates all UN emergency relief. 联合国人道主义事务协调厅在紧急救济协调员领导下，负责协调联合国的所有紧急救济工作。
• How am I supposed to find the client-relations coordinator? 我怎么才能找到客户关系协调员的办公室？

13 buffalo   

n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛

参考例句：

• Asian buffalo isn't as wild as that of America's. 亚洲水牛比美洲水牛温顺些。
• The boots are made of buffalo hide. 这双靴子是由水牛皮制成的。

14 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

15 detrimental   

adj.损害的，造成伤害的

参考例句：

• We know that heat treatment is detrimental to milk.我们知道加热对牛奶是不利的。
• He wouldn't accept that smoking was detrimental to health.他不相信吸烟有害健康。

16 domestication   

n.驯养，驯化

参考例句：

• The first was the domestication of animals. 第一个阶段是驯养动物。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• In northwestern China, there is no evidence for endemic domestication of any animals. 在中国西北，没有任何当地动物驯化的迹象。 来自辞典例句

17 spotted   

adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的

参考例句：

• The milkman selected the spotted cows,from among a herd of two hundred.牛奶商从一群200头牛中选出有斑点的牛。
• Sam's shop stocks short spotted socks.山姆的商店屯积了有斑点的短袜。

18 mammoth   

n.长毛象；adj.长毛象似的，巨大的

参考例句：

• You can only undertake mammoth changes if the finances are there.资金到位的情况下方可进行重大变革。
• Building the new railroad will be a mammoth job.修建那条新铁路将是一项巨大工程。