VOA常速英语2014--Fences and Wildlife Don’t Mix 围栏与野生动物不能共存（在线收听）

Fences and Wildlife Don’t Mix 围栏与野生动物不能共存

If you want to protect endangered species in the wild, don’t fence them in. An article in the journal Science says fencing can actually harm both animals and ecosystems. Scientists at the Zoological Society of London and the Wildlife Conservation Society say the use of fences to protect threatened species should be a last resort.

如果你想保护濒危的野生生物，不要把他们围起来。旅游科学的一篇文章说围养对动物和生态系统都会造成破坏，伦敦动物界和野生生物保护协会的科学家说用围栏保护受威协的物种应该是最后才选用的一种保护手段。

Researcher Sarah Durant said, “Fences by their nature will segregate habitats and that can actually be a real problem, particularly in drylands systems where wildlife often has to move quite large distances to access resources and water. So that in itself can be a problem. And then you have wide-ranging species, such as cheetah and wild dog, but also elephants as well, which need access to very large connected habitat for their survival.”

研究员沙拉.杜兰特（Sarah Durant）说：“从本性来说，围栏会分割野生物的栖息地，这才将成为一个真正的问题。特别是在干地，野生动物经常需要长途迁徙才能获得足够的资源和水，所以，围养就会出问题。而且有许多的野生物种，比如猎豹、野狗、还有大象等，都需要广阔的领域来生存。”

Fences are not very widespread right now in Africa. Durant said the biggest concentration is in South Africa.

杜兰特说，现在围栏在非洲还未被广泛使用，目前主要集中在南非。

“They’re often used basically for territory protection. So people will own private land and they build fences around their private land to protect wildlife as a resource within those areas.

“它们（围栏）通常被用于保护领地。人们有自己的私有土地，所以他们在周围建起围栏以保护里面的野生动物资源。”

However, she said there’s concern more fences may be built, as human populations spread further into wildlife habitats.

然而，她说，有呼声要建造更多的围栏，因为人类的足迹已扩散到野生物的栖息地。

“Governments, for example, very often see fencing as a potential solution to addressing human-wildlife conflict. It’s seen as a solution that appears more straightforward than it is in practice. Once you put a fence up, then you have to maintain it. And if you don’t maintain it, you can end up with a situation where wildlife conflict could actually be higher than it was before.”

“比如，政府经常把围栏看作是有可能解决人类与野生物冲突的方法，这似乎是比实践更为直接的方法。一旦建起围栏，就需要进行维护；如果不维护，与野生物的冲突将陷入比以往更为严重的状态。”

Often, Durant said, local communities will actually breach such fences.

杜兰特说，事实上当地居民经常想拆除这些围栏。

“Very marginalized communities that have problems meeting their own household needs in terms of food and nutrition – very often they will want to breach the fences to gain access to the wildlife. And also fence wire can be used to build snares and that can actually exacerbate a snaring problem.”

“边缘社区需要食物和营养满足自己家庭的需求 – 他们经常想打破围栏走近野生物。围栏也可被用于猎捕，这将恶化猎捕问题。”

She said many communities have developed strategies over the years to deal with marauding animals, such as elephants. Coping skills they might lose if fences are built around their communities, and then the fences are breached by one or more elephants. What’s more, fences can build resentment in communities against conservation efforts.

她说，有许多居民已经有多年的经验对付经常作案的动物，如大象。如果在社区周围建起围栏，他们的这些经验将会慢慢丢失，然后再面临围栏被一头或多头大象毁坏的局面。更重要的是，围栏将会使当地居民对保护野生动物产生怨恨。

Besides that, the wildlife researcher said fences can affect predator-prey dynamics.

除此之外，研究员说围栏还会影响到捕食者-被捕食者的动态平衡。

“When you look at some of the densities of lions in fenced reserves what you find is that they’re actually kept at levels much higher than what the areas would be expected to support. So that suggests that it’s actually altering the predator-prey dynamics. And lions aren’t the only predators in ecosystems. You’ve also got other predators such as spotted hyenas, wild dogs,” she said.

“当你留意一些受围栏保护的狮子密集区，你会发现它们的状态比原本期望的要保持得好得多，因此，有人建议改变捕食者- 被捕食者的动态状况。狮子并不是生态系统中唯一的捕食者，还有班鬣犬、野狗等。”她如是说。

Predators, such as cheetahs and wild dogs, need a lot of space.

捕食者，例如猎豹和野狗，都需要很大的活动空间。

“They need areas in excess of 10,000 square kilometers, if you’re going to support – what we call – viable and sustainable populations of these species. They need very wide areas of connected habitat. Elephants and wildebeests can need areas in excess of tens of thousands square kilometers, particularly where you’ve got migratory systems, such as you have in the Serengeti, where the wildebeests will range across areas in excess of 20,000 square kilometers,” she said.

“如果你想支持我们所说的对这些物种的可行和可持续的保护，它们的活动领地需要超过10,000 平方公里，它们需要非常广阔的区域。大象和牛羚需要超过10,000 平方公里，特别是在迁徙区，比如说在塞伦盖蒂平原，那里的牛羚跨越的区域超过20,000 平方公里。”

Durant said one well-known fencing disaster occurred in the Kalahari. The fence was a veterinary cordon barrier. It was designed to separate wildebeests from cattle and prevent disease from being transmitted to cattle herds. What happened, she said, was the collapse of the wildebeest migrations in that region.

杜兰特说在喀拉哈里沙漠发生过一次由围栏引起的著名灾难。那个围栏是一种兽医的警戒栏，本来是用于把牛羚和牛分开，以预防向牛群传播疾病，结果呢，她说，造成的却是那个区域牛羚迁徙的大幅减少。

Instead of spending a lot of money to build and maintain fences, she said, invest that money in alternative approaches. These include improved animal husbandry, community-based crop protection, insurance programs and sensitive use of land to help prevent human-wildlife conflict.

与其花费大量的财力去建造和维护那些围栏，她说，不如把这些钱投入到可替代的方法中去。这些方法包括更好的动物饲养方法、基于社区的农作物保护、买保险和更好的利用土地以帮助预防人类与野生动物的冲突。

The authors of the article do say fences can be valuable resources in some cases. They cited the protection of birds in New Zealand against foreign species -- and safeguarding wolves and lynx in Scotland.

文章的作者确实也说围栏在某些情况下很有用，他们引用了在新西兰保护鸟类免受外来物种的侵袭和在苏格兰保护狼和猞猁的案例。