英语听力文摘 English Digest 377、人兔大战—

In 1859, an unassuming Australian landowner named Thomas Austin got the hunting bug. Eager for something to shoot, he released twenty-four wild rabbits onto his property and had a jolly time tracking them down. Unfortunately, some of the rabbits managed to escape and, as rabbits are known to do, began to breed like…well, rabbits.

By 1900, Austin was dead but his unwanted legacy lived on in the form of a rabbit infestation that spread throughout the entire Australian continent. Desperate landowners scrambled to capture over two million rabbits per year, but this hardly made a dent in the rabbit population. Rabbits, it seemed, had taken up permanent residence down under.

With its long ears, twitching nose, and adorable hopping ability, the individual rabbit is fairly cute. Multiply that bunny by millions, however, and they begin to seem entirely sinister. The great Australian rabbit infestation was ecologically devastating. The buck-toothed creatures helped extinguish nearly one-eighth of Australia’s native mammal species and led to the extinction of countless numbers of plants, leading to widespread soil erosion.

The Australian government tried to corral the rabbits by building so-called rabbit-proof fences across vast stretches of land. Undaunted, the rabbits burrowed under. Finally, in the 1950s, the Australians resorted to chemical warfare, injecting several rabbits with myxoma, an experimental virus known to target and kill rabbits. The virus spread, and the rabbit population dropped from six-hundred million to one-hundred million.

But that’s still a lot of rabbits, and those with a natural resistance to the virus began breeding with a fury. And so, the rabbit wars carry on still.

澳大利亚的兔子

1959年，澳大利亚一位默默无名的地主——Thomas Austin在打猎上碰到了瓶颈。在强烈的打猎欲望的催使下，他在自家的土地上放生了24头野兔。一时之间，他的一大乐趣便是找出那些兔子。可偏偏就有那么一些兔子逃了出去，做着我们所知兔子该做的事——生殖繁衍。

1900年，Austin去世了。但是他那些让人头疼的“遗产”却已然遍布整个澳大利亚大陆，它们成群结队地袭击着一个个的庄园，让人头疼不已。农场主们别无他法，只能大量地捕兔子。每年，农场主们能捕到超过两百万只兔子，可是，这只能算是冰山一角，区区两百万对兔子这一群体不够成任何影响。就这样，兔子俨然已成澳大利亚的“常住居民”。

乍看上去，长长的耳朵，抽动的鼻子和蹦蹦跳跳的可爱姿势，兔子真的是可爱得不行。当然，这只是针对一只兔子而言。如果是上百万只兔子聚在一起，那简直就是灾难。澳大利亚兔子的“横行霸道”从生态学上来看简直就是毁灭性的。这些长着小龅牙的生物“帮助”澳大利亚八分之一的土著哺乳动物走向灭绝，顺道再让不计其数的植物从此消逝，最后的结果便是，澳大利亚严重的大面积水土流失。

澳大利亚政府也曾圈出大片土地，围上所谓的防兔围栏，试图将兔子都赶到一个地方。可是，这些兔子是毫无畏惧的，它们从地底挖了洞，就这样就逃了出来。到后来的20世纪50年代，澳大利亚人终将化学药物投入了人兔大战中。人们将粘液瘤注入兔子体内，粘液瘤是一种用来杀兔子的实验用病毒。随着该病毒的传播，兔子数量从6亿只急速减至1亿只。

但是，1亿仍是一个很大的数目。而且有些兔子天生就对这种病毒有抗体，接着这些兔子开始迅猛繁殖。因而，直至今天，在澳大利亚这片土地上人兔大战仍在进行着。

英语听力文摘 English Digest 377、人兔大战——生生不息（在线收听）