科学美国人60秒 电子蛋追踪非法贩子(2)

Finally, it was time for a field test.

最后，应该进行实地测试了。

"I was actually the person who put the eggs in the nest."

“实际上，是我把蛋放在巢穴里的。”

Helen Pheasey of the University of Kent.

肯特大学的海伦·菲西。

"So it was really a case of deploying a load of decoys into the nests and seeing what happens when they get taken."

“所以这实际上是在巢穴中部署大量诱饵蛋，看看它们被带走后会发生什么。”

Pheasey planted a decoy egg in 101 sea turtle nests on four Costa Rican beaches.

菲西在哥斯达黎加四个海滩上的101个海龟巢穴中植入了一个诱饵蛋。

About a quarter of the decoys got snatched.

大约四分之一的诱饵蛋被盗走了。

Some malfunctioned, but others gave a trackable signal.

一些出现了故障，但另一些发出了可追踪的信号。

One wound up at a bar about a mile away.

一个结束在一英里外的酒吧里。

But another traveled an impressive 85 miles from its nest.

但另一个诱饵蛋，从它的巢穴出发，足足走了令人印象深刻的85英里。

Pheasey kept an eye on its progress from her cell phone.

菲西用手机盯着它的进展。

"And I basically watched this egg moving further and further in land. And eventually it stopped.

“我基本上是看着这颗蛋在陆地上移动得越来越远。最终它停了下来。

So I zoomed in on, like google maps basically, and it showed me very clearly that it had gone behind a supermarket, like some back alley supermarket loading bay kind of area.

所以我把它放大，就像谷歌地图一样，这让我清楚地看到它在一个超市后面，就像一个后巷超市的装货区。

Which was pretty suspicious.

这很可疑。

There's no reason to really be there unless you're up to no good."

除非你不怀好意，否则根本没有理由去那里。”

The decoy hung around the loading dock for a time before making its way to a nearby residential property.

诱饵在装货区徘徊了一段时间，然后来到附近的一个住宅区。

"The fact that it spent two days in sort of waiting suggests that it may have been handed over to a trafficker."

“事实上，在某种程度上等待了两天，这表明它可能已经被交给了一个非法买家了。”

Who sold it to someone else, perhaps even the consumer.

非法买卖者将诱饵蛋卖给了别人，甚至可能是顾客。

"That really fits with what we know about the illegal trade of eggs in Costa Rica.

“这与我们所知的哥斯达黎加非法海龟蛋交易十分吻合。

You know, we know from anecdotal information and from interview information that eggs are sold door to door.

我们从轶事信息和采访信息得知，海龟蛋是挨家挨户卖的。

And it seems very likely that this is what happened.

看起来很有可能就是这样。

So we were very happy with that result, we've proved the concept that you actually use these eggs.

我们对这个结果非常满意，这实际上已经证实了我们使用这些诱饵蛋的想法。

Pheasey says she hopes the decoys—which they've dubbed the "invest-EGG-ators"—can help to really crack down on the illegal poaching of sea turtle eggs.

菲西说，她希望这些被他们称为“投资海龟蛋者”的诱饵能够帮助真正打击非法偷猎海龟蛋的行为。

Thanks for listening for Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Karen Hopkin.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是凯伦·霍普金。