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A recent headline on the Web site theverge.com got a lot of attention on social media. Because each new phrase seemed to take the message in an unexpected direction. The headline read: U.S. government plans to use drones to fire vaccine-laced M&Ms near endangered ferrets.

最近theverge.com网站上的一个标题引起很多社交媒体的关注。因为每一个新的短语似乎将所含的信息引往一个意想不到的方向。标题写着:美国政府计划利用无人机发射带有疫苗的M&Ms糖果保护濒危雪貂。

Some background. Black-footed ferrets have been on the endangered species list since 1967. Only about 300 were known to be alive in the wild at the end of 2015. They tend to live in the Great Plains and the West. Because they love to eat prairie dogs, which tend to live in the Great Plains and the West. Unfortunately, prairie dogs often harbor fleas¹, and fleas can carry the plague. Yup, that plague, the so-called Black Death that killed millions in Europe in the 14th century.

一些背景知识。自1967年起，黑足雪貂被列为濒危物种。到2015年年底，现存的野生黑脚貂只有大约300只。它们喜欢生活在大平原和美国西部。因为他们爱吃草原犬鼠，草原犬鼠往往喜欢生活在大平原和美国西部。不幸的是，草原犬鼠通常会滋生跳蚤，并且跳蚤可以传播鼠疫。是的，所谓的黑死病，14世纪在欧洲它导致数百万人死亡。

So ferrets suffer when fleas cause a plague outbreak in prairie dogs, either because the ferrets also catch the disease or because the prairie dogs die and the ferrets go hungry. Officials have tried vaccinating² individual ferrets and they’ve tried treating prairie-dog burrows³ with flea-killer. But neither method is particularly efficient.

当跳蚤导致草原犬鼠鼠疫爆发，雪貂受到牵连。要么因为雪貂也染上疾病，要么由于草原犬鼠死亡，雪貂遭受饥饿。官员们试图给雪貂接种疫苗，他们试图往草原犬鼠的洞穴里喷洒跳蚤专用杀蚤剂。但哪一种方法都不是特别有效。

And so the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is preparing a study for September in the UL Bend National Wildlife Refuge in Montana. The viral headline was incorrect about the M&Ms, but otherwise, yes, aerial drones will shoot vaccine-laced pellets designed to be irresistible⁴ to prairie dogs. The drone delivery system should quickly spread the vaccine-carrying goodies over a wide area so that lots of prairie dogs gobble them up—thus making the prairie dogs available to be gobbled up, safely, by the endangered ferrets.

因此美国鱼类和野生动物管理局正在在蒙大拿州国家野生动物保护区准备九月的一项研究。有关M&Ms的病毒标题是错误的。但除此之外，是的，无人机将发射带有疫苗的糖果，被设计用来对付不可抗拒的草原犬鼠。无人机输送系统应在广泛区域迅速播撒带有疫苗的糖果。这样很多草原犬鼠就可以将它们吞食掉——从而濒危雪貂可以安全地吞食草原犬鼠。

And so everybody wins. Except for the prairie dogs that get eaten. And the Yersinia pestis bacteria that cause plague. Well, that’s it for me, I’ve droned on long enough.

这样一来，除了被吃掉的草原犬鼠和引起鼠疫的鼠疫杆菌，人人都是赢家。好的，就是这些了，我已经讲了很长时间了。