科学美国人60秒 SSS 濒临灭绝的粉色河豚(2)（在线收听）

“The interesting thing about the pink river dolphins is they then go into the forest to hunt, which is wide open.

“粉色河豚有趣的地方是，它们会进入森林捕食，而森林是完全开放的。

With that, they've evolved from being toothed whales.

就这样，它们从齿鲸进化而来。

When the Andes rose up, they were trapped in the Amazon and evolved.

安第斯山脉隆起时，它们被困在亚马逊河中进化。

And they’re obligate freshwater; they're not saltwater at all,

它们只生活在淡水中; 它们根本不能在海水中生存

and they can also flex their bodies almost in half to get around trees and things like that.

它们还能把身体弯曲成两部分，绕过树木之类的东西。

They’re different from ocean dolphins in that their beaks are longer,

它们与海洋海豚的不同之处在于它们的喙更长，

and they have small cilia, or small things to feel on the end of their beaks.

它们的喙末端有很小的纤毛，或者说是可以感知的小东西。

And it's a very low visibility environment, so they’re communicating by echolocation.”

这是一个能见度非常低的环境，所以它们通过回声定位进行交流。”

A drowned Amazon forest is a difficult place for them to move, so how did you get into position to capture them on tape?

被淹没的亚马逊森林对它们来说是一个很难移动的地方，所以你是如何找到合适的位置来拍摄它们的呢?

“We go in with small boats and the water hyacinths and everything being pushed down the river tributaries.

“我们驾着小船、带着水葫芦和其他东西沿着河流支流顺流而下。

You've got to hack your way through it.

你得从水葫芦里钻出来 。

Once you get into the oxbow lakes, which change every year, the dolphins can operate in there really well.

一旦你进入每年都在变化的牛轭湖，海豚可以在那里很好地活动。

They tend to hang out in there as the water comes up.

当水涨上来的时候，它们就会在里面待着。

And the water will rise 20 to 30 feet to submerge the forest.

河水会上升20到30英尺淹没森林。

Then they can go to the forest and then come out.

然后它们可以前往森林，然后出来。

“I've been down there multiple seasons to record and over four different times of field recording down there.

“我已经在那里录制了好几个季节，在那里录制了四次不同的野外录音。

I've gotten 10 seconds of recording, 30 seconds recording.

我有10秒录音，30秒录音。

In the last time, when it was just the right moment where they’re going into start to hunt in these fish nests, I got five hours of recording.”

最后一次，当它们开始在这些鱼窝里捕食的时候，我录了5个小时。”

So what are we actually hearing when we listen to the audio?

所以当我们听音频时，我们实际上听到了什么?

“So there's a mixture of sounds, and there are not surface sounds.

“这是一种混合的声音，而不是表面的声音。

It's recorded with a hydrophone.

这是用水听器录下来的。

On the surface, you’re hearing the dolphins.

在水面上，你能听到海豚的声音。

And a lot of people that have seen dolphins when they come up for air—they are mammals—you'll hear the blow happen.

很多人见过海豚当它们浮出水面时——它们是哺乳动物——你会听到撞击的声音。

But when they go subsurface, then they’re communicating in this whole array of more ultrasonic sounds, so we’re catching the edge of that.

但当它们潜入水下时，它们就会用更多的超声波进行交流，所以我们能捕捉到声音的边界。

But there's also sounds of croaking of—Amazonian freshwater fish are not well characterized—what should be catfish that we’re hearing.

但也有低沉的声音——亚马逊淡水鱼并没有很鲜明的特征——我们听到的应该是鲶鱼的声音。

So you’re hearing this kind of mixture of croaking of these fish and then communication of the dolphins to pinpoint where there's really good things to eat.”

所以你可以听到这些鱼的混合低沉音，还有海豚之间的交流，以确定哪里有真正好的食物。”

You said at the beginning they are a very endangered species.

你一开始说它们是濒临灭绝的物种。

Do you have a feeling that making these recordings is important because maybe, as a species, they might not exist in the future?

你是否觉得录制这些录音很重要，因为作为一个物种，它们可能在未来消失?

“The pressure that's going on right now is kind of astounding.

“现在有持续不断的压力，令人震惊。

And it's happening all over the Amazonian basin with the countries there,

亚马逊流域的所有国家都在这样做，

so Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela and then all the way down into Bolivia as well.

巴西，秘鲁，哥伦比亚，委内瑞拉，然后一直到玻利维亚。

There's a lot of colonists that have gone down to the Amazon basin

有很多殖民者来到了亚马逊流域

because they’re landless, and they want to farm catfish because there's a big market for them.

因为他们没有土地，他们想要养殖鲶鱼，因为鲶鱼有很大的市场。

“So the biggest piece of protein to put in that aquaculture is pink river dolphins.

“水产养殖中最大的一块蛋白质是粉色河豚。

So they'll shoot them or hack them up into bits and raise catfish,

所以他们会射杀河豚或把它们砍成碎片，然后养鲶鱼，

then send them out to any export market, maybe in Columbia or something like that.

然后把它们送到任何出口市场，可能是哥伦比亚或类似的地方。

That's happening all over the Amazon basin right now.

现在亚马逊流域到处都在发生这种事。

It's kind of horrific, and you see these beautiful animals, and you know you can see them surface.

这有点可怕，你看到这些美丽的动物，你知道你可以看到它们浮出水面。

And they, you know, it's pretty remote down there, so it's hard to enforce.

那里很偏远，所以很难执行。

It's definitely illegal in Peru to kill a river dolphin, but it happens.

在秘鲁，捕杀海豚绝对是违法的，但它确实发生了。

So we’re trying to raise consciousness with these recordings

所以我们试图通过这些录音来提高人们的意识

and then bring this into new works, creative works and scientific works to start to document that.”

然后把这些带到新的作品，创造性的作品和科学作品中，开始记录它。”