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Lion Conservation Challenges Giraffe Protection

The giraffe is an icon¹ of the African savannah. The lion is the top predator² of the ecosystem³. Both animals face uncertain futures⁴, and both are subjects of intense, ongoing⁵ conservation work. Now a study suggests that saving one might mean bad news for the other.

长颈鹿是非洲大草原的象征。狮子是生态系统的顶级掠食者。这两类动物都面临着不确定的未来，和激烈的持续保护工作。现在一项研究表明，保存一种动物对另一种动物则是坏消息。

"When I was out in the field, I heard anecdotes⁶ from people that in one of my study sites there were very few juvenile⁷ giraffes, because apparently⁸ the lions in the area had developed a preference for taking young giraffes."University of Bristol biologist Zoe Muller. Working in Kenya's Great Rift⁹ Valley, she focused her attention on two neighboring sites: a national park with lots of lions, and a privately¹⁰ owned conservancy with no lions.

“当实地工作的时候，我听到人们的很多轶事，在一个研究地点，小长颈鹿很少，因为这个地区的狮子已经喜欢捕食长颈鹿了。”布里斯托大学生物学家Zoe Muller说。在肯尼亚东非大裂谷工作时，她把注意力集中在两个相邻的地方：一个有很多狮子的国家公园和一个没有狮子的私人保护区。

In the lion-free conservancy, 26 percent of the giraffes were less than one year old. But in the lion-filled park, juvenile giraffes made up only 5 percent of the species’ population."So I was able to show that in the presence of lions, the number of juveniles¹¹ is severely¹² reduced, by actually 83 percent. Which was a lot higher than I thought it would be. Quite shocking, actually."

在无狮子保护区里，有26%的长颈鹿不到一岁。但在狮子山中，小长颈鹿只占总数的5%。“所以我能够证明，在有狮子的情况下，小长颈鹿的数量大大减少，实际上是83%的存活率。这比我想象的数目要高很多，实际上这令人非常震惊。”

Giraffe populations have declined by some 40 percent in the last 30 years, with fewer than 98,000 individuals left in the wild. In recognition of those figures, they've recently been classified as "vulnerable," that is, likely to become endangered.The ongoing loss of juveniles could lead to a situation where the population crashes, since population growth and stability both rely on having enough calves¹³ survive to sexual maturity—so they, too, can breed and produce offspring of their own.

在过去的30年中，长颈鹿的数量已经下降了40%左右，野外长颈鹿的数量还不到98,000个。他们把这些急剧减少的数字，最近归类为“易受伤害”，即可能濒临灭绝。小长颈鹿的持续流失可能导致长颈鹿崩溃，因为长颈鹿的增长和稳定都依靠着能生存到性成熟期——所以他们也可以繁殖和产生自己的后代。

The study compares only two sites in East Africa. But it highlights the extreme complexity¹⁴ of wildlife management in Africa, where the recovery of one species could potentially come at the cost of another."Unfortunately, in East Africa especially, most of the conservation areas these days are fenced and enclosed. And so this is going to become an increasingly more common problem, where we find that predators¹⁵ are being enclosed in specific areas."

这项研究只比较了东非的两个地点。但是，这也凸显了非洲野生动物管理的极端复杂性，一个物种的恢复可能会以另一个物种的成本为代价。“不幸的是，尤其在东非，现在大部分的保护区都被围起来了，所以这个 将会成为一个越来越普遍的问题，我们发现掠食者正被封闭在特定的地区。

Allowing for the conservation of both species in the same areas is thus a tricky¹⁶ proposition. Muller says that one possibility might be to translocate giraffes into and out of lion-free areas, or to translocate lions into and out of places with lots of giraffes. If we do that, we may help ensure the two species’ survival. But are they still truly wild?

因此，允许在同一地区保护两种动物物种，是一个棘手的命题。Muller说，一种可能是将长颈鹿移入或移出无狮子地区，或将狮子移入或移出长颈鹿区。如果我们这样做的话，我们可以帮助两个物种都能生存下来。但他们还真是野生动物吗?