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This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Christopher Intagliata.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是克里斯托弗·因塔格里塔。

New Zealand once had a Dr. Seuss–worthy assortment¹ of birds—take the giant moa, a flightless bird twice as tall as an adult human, which weighed more than a sumo wrestler². Then there was the Haast's eagle, the largest eagle ever known to exist. It hunted the moa.

新西兰曾经有过值得苏斯博士写进书中的各种各样的鸟类——比如巨型恐鸟，这种不会飞的鸟身高是成年人的两倍，体重超过相扑选手。还有哈斯特巨鹰，这是已知存在过的最大型的鹰。它捕猎恐鸟。

But, as the story often goes, then came humans: first the Maori, about 700 years ago, and then European colonists³, a couple hundred years ago. And both sets of people drove many of New Zealand's unique birds to extinction⁴. And many of the surviving species are now threatened or endangered.

但就如故事中经常发生的那样，人类来了：首先是约700年前毛利人的到来，然后是几百年前的欧洲殖民者。这两组人让新西兰特有鸟类灭绝。许多幸存物种现在正面临威胁或濒临灭绝。

"So you have species like the kiwi, the kakapo, kea, the kaka, the takahe—all with nice Maori names, but all in danger of going extinct."

“像几维鸟、鸮鹦鹉、啄羊鹦鹉、卡卡鹦鹉、南秧鸟等物种，它们都拥有好听的毛利语名字，但都面临灭绝的危险。”

Luis Valente, an evolutionary⁵ biologist at the Natural History Museum of Berlin. Valente and his colleagues used genetic⁶ data to build a tree of New Zealand's living and extinct native birds. They then used a model to estimate how long it took new species to emerge. Which allowed them to assess humans' bird-killing habits—on an evolutionary time scale.

柏林自然历史博物馆的进化生物学家路易斯·瓦伦蒂说到。瓦伦蒂和同事利用基因数据建立了新西兰现存和已灭绝本土鸟类的树状图。之后，他们用模型来估计新物种出现所需的时间。这使他们能够从进化时间尺度上评估人类捕杀鸟类的习惯。

"In a couple of centuries, humans wiped out 50 million years of evolutionary history. So the little impact we think we have is having repercussions⁷ for millions of years." The analysis is in the journal Current Biology.

“在几百年时间内，人类消灭了5000万年的进化史。因此我们认为，人类造成的这种小冲击正在产生持续数百万年的影响。”这项分析发表在《当代生物学》期刊上。

Looking ahead, the scientists say it could take another 10 million years to recover species that are currently threatened, or near threatened, if nothing is done to save them. But it's not all doom⁸ and gloom.

展望未来，科学家表示，如果不采取任何措施拯救目前正遭受威胁或即将受威胁的物种，那要恢复这些物种可能还需要1000万年时间。但也并非全是不幸与黑暗。

"The conservation efforts being done in New Zealand at the moment are quite pioneering, and they've been quite successful. So I think we're still at a position where we can still prevent lots of millions of years of evolution from further being lost." As ecologist Aldo Leopold said, "To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering."

“新西兰目前正在进行的保护工作非常具有开创性，而且非常成功。所以，我认为我们现在仍然能阻止数百万年的进化成果进一步消失。”正如生态学家奥尔多·利奥波德所言：“理想补救要兴起，零件齐全是前提”。

Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。