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African Penguins² Pulled into an Ecological³ Trap 生态陷阱迷惑了可爱的企鹅

Over millions of years, penguins have evolved a keen sense of where to find food. Once they’re old enough, they set off from the shores on which they hatched for the first time and swim long distances in search of tasty fish like anchovies⁴ and sardines⁵. But they don’t search directly for the fish themselves.

经过数百万年，企鹅已经进化获得去哪寻找食物的敏锐的感觉。一旦企鹅足够大，它们就会从孵化的海岸出发，游很长的距离去寻找凤尾鱼、沙丁鱼等美味的鱼类。但是，它们并不是直接去搜寻鱼本身。

For example, when young endangered African penguins head out to sea, they look for areas with low surface temperatures and high chlorophyll. Because those conditions signal the presence of phytoplankton. And lots of phytoplankton means lots of zooplankton, which in turn means lots of their favorite fish. Well, that’s what it used to mean.

例如，濒临灭绝的非洲企鹅前往大海，它们会搜寻表面温度较低以及有高叶绿素的地方，因为这些条件预示着存在着浮游植物。大量的浮游植物也就意味着存在着大量的浮游动物，也就是说，这里有很多它们最爱的鱼啦，好吧，这是过去的含义。

Climate change plus overfishing have made the penguin¹ feeding grounds a mirage⁶. The habitat is indeed plankton-rich—but now it’s fish-poor. Researchers call this kind of scenario⁷ an "ecological trap."

气候变化以及过度捕鱼使得企鹅的觅食区变成了海市蜃楼。这里浮游植物仍然很茂盛，但是鱼类却很贫乏。研究人员将这种情况称为“生态陷阱”。

"It's a situation where you have a signal that previously⁸ pointed⁹ an animal towards good quality habitat. That habitat's been changed, usually by rapidly induced human pressures, usually anthropogenic change—and the signal stays, but the underlying¹⁰ quality in the environment deteriorates¹¹."

“这种情况是你获得了一个信号，这个信号向动物指出高质量的栖息地。但是，由于人类的压力，通常是人为的改变导致栖息地发生了变化——可信号仍然存在，但是环境的潜在质量已经恶化。”

University of Exeter zoologist¹² Richard Sherley. He and his team used satellite imaging to track the dispersal of 54 recently fledged African penguins from eight sites along southern Africa. Historically, the birds benefitted from tons of fish off the coasts of Angola, Namibia and western South Africa, but now they're going hungry.

理查德·谢利是埃克塞特大学动物学家。他和团队利用卫星地图来跟踪非洲南部八个地方54只成熟企鹅的分散过程。从历史上来看，企鹅在安哥拉、纳米比亚和南非西部海岸捕食鱼类，但是现在企鹅正在挨饿。

"I was really hoping we'd see them going east, and finding areas where the fish had shifted to…so I was quite surprised to be wrong, and unfortunately quite sad to be wrong. It ends up being quite a sad story for the penguins."

“我真的希望可以看见它们向东行走，然后找到鱼类已经转移的地区……不幸的是，企鹅的判断错误，我很惊讶，也感到非常的悲伤。最终这对企鹅将会是一个悲伤的故事。”

The researchers calculate that by falling into this ecological trap, African penguin populations on South Africa's Western Cape¹³ have declined by around 80 percent. The findings are in the journal Current Biology.

研究人员计算了，由于陷入生态陷阱，在南非西开普的非洲企鹅的数量已经减少了约80%.该研究结果发表在《当代生物学》杂志上。

Some research groups are exploring the idea of translocating chicks to a place where they can't get trapped, like the Eastern Cape. But Sherley thinks that a longer-term solution means implementing¹⁴ regulations to create more sustainable fisheries, something that he says has public support.

一些研究调查小组正在考虑将幼小的企鹅转移到东开普省等这些不会使这些企鹅受困的地方。但是谢利认为，更为长久的解决方案是实施规则创造一个更加可持续的渔业，而这需要公众的支持。

And as for the penguins?

那么这些企鹅呢?

"There's not necessarily yet in an extinction¹⁵ vortex. So it's not hopeless yet."But time flies. Unlike penguins.

“企鹅未必会灭绝。所以，还有希望。但是光阴似箭。可不像企鹅似的(慢慢悠悠的)”。