英国新闻听力 拯救新西兰的濒危物种（在线收听）

新西兰的枭鹦是一种不能飞的巨大鹦鹉，它求偶时会发出很奇特很大声的交配鸣叫，现在全世界只有86只存活的枭鹦。

Save New Zealand's Endangered Species

LYNEE MALCOLM: The strange and powerful mating calls of the giant flightless parrot of New Zealand, the Kakapo. There are only 86 of them left in the world.

BIOLOGIST: We really should be inspired by the fact that the Kakapo is still with us. Really the kakapo has a very similar life history to that iconic extinct bird the Dodo. And yet somehow, Kakapo is still with us despite all the devastation we have wrought on these islands and with all the introduced predators we have brought here, Kakapo have managed to hang on.

LYNNE MALCOLM: I'm Lynne Malcolm and in the final part of our BBC series Balancing Nature we're in the land of the long white cloud.

Biologists have described New Zealand as the closest you'll ever come to life on another planet. And as we'll hear in a pioneering country wide experiment, its extensive network of islands is being used to save its highly endangered and unique wild life.

BIOLOGIST: For example the Tuatara and the night frogs, the flightless crickets and these incredibly bizarre forms, it's a mere sized invertebrate with tast on it which only comes out at night and eats other invertebrates, saucer sized predatory snails, earthworms we meet a lot, things like the Moana kiwi. All of which have incredible qualities and the real distinctive feature I suppose is that we'd never got mammals. So what makes us unique in the world is this very wide proliferation of birds, species which we've lost but fortunately because of the honors we've managed to hang on to a few.

LYNNE MALCOLM: And New Zealand is availing a growing responsibility, to save this genetic treasure house for the future.

BIOLOGIST: You only have to look around you here to see just how rich, how wealthy New Zealand is in terms of its biodiversity. The curry trees up on the hillside, these giant ferns along the stream that we're standing by, and the bird life, I can't get over the fact that I can step out of my back door and I can hear the kiwis calling in the bush. New Zealand has a tremendous resource and it's just so important that they protect it not only now but for the future.

LYNNE MALCOLM: New Zealand, an alluring, ancient archipelago in the Pacific, 2000 km southeast of Australia. Nearly all its plant and invertebrate species and half its birds are found no where else in the world. But what makes this country a biodiversity hotspot is the catastrophic imbalance between its native wild life and an explosion of invasive pests.

It began with the Pacific rat arriving from Polynesia nearly 1000 years ago and escalated six hundred years later when the Norway rat jumped ship from Captain Cook's Endeavor. But as Mick Clout, an invasive species specialist from Oakland University points out, it didn't end with rats.

MICK CLOUT: We have had more than thirty species of introduced mammals established in New Zealand now. Latterly stoats, ferrets, weasels, cats, dogs, many species of dear and brush tail possums from Australia and the list goes on and on. And they have quite devastating effects. Many species have become extinct as a result of introduced mammals. It is, I believe, the most significant challenge facing conservation in New Zealand.

BIOLOGIST: In a bush that doesn't have predator control, every hectare of indigenous forests within New Zealand has between 2 and 6 ship rats and about 3 to 13 possums. So there is no place with in New Zealand that the bird populations are safe from the constant threat of these predators.

LYNNE MALCOLM: The Australian brush tail possum was first brought to New Zealand in 1837 to establish a fur industry. But without mammalian competitors here the possum population grew to an estimated 70 million, and according to Bruce Burns from land care research they are devastating the country's plants and wild life.

BRUCE BURNS: When possums are in the forests, the leaves of these riot are like an ice-cream to them and you would end up with just the dead tree with no leaves on it whatsoever, and we are continuously seeing even the common New Zealand bird species declining in the areas where we were not doing something about it.

LYNNE MALCOLM: More than 100 years ago, the damage caused by these pests on the New Zealand's mainland was officially recognized by the government. The country has around 1000 islands of varying sizes, many uninhabited and so is in a privileged position to use them as little arcs or life boats for endangered species.

拯救新西兰的濒危物种

林恩·马尔科姆：新西兰的枭鹦是一种不能飞的巨大鹦鹉，它求偶时会发出很奇特很大声的交配鸣叫，现在全世界只有86只存活的枭鹦。

生物学家：我们真的应该为枭鹦依然与人类生活在一起而欢欣鼓舞。枭鹦与绝种的渡渡鸟的生命历史十分相似。然而，尽管我们给这些岛屿造成了毁坏，尽管我们引进了食肉动物，但是枭鹦仍然坚持存活了下来。

林恩·马尔科姆：我是林恩·马尔科姆，在英国广播公司系列片《和谐自然》的最后部分，我们来到了天蓝地阔的这片土地。

生物学家把新西兰描述为你能与其他星球上的生命体验亲密接触的地方。正如我们所听到的，在一个拓荒国家大范围的实验中，交织成网状的岛屿正用于拯救处于濒危状态的独特的野生生物。

生物学家：例如大蜥蜴和夜蛙，不能飞的蟋蟀以及有着不可思议的奇怪外型的动物，它是一种小型的无脊椎动物，只在夜间活动，捕食其他无脊椎动物，茶托状的食肉蜗牛，蚯蚓是常见的动物，还有摩阿纳鹬鸵。所有动物都具有令人惊讶的特质，但我认为真正的区别在于我们从未有过哺乳动物。所以我们在世界上的独特地位来自于鸟类的大量繁殖，虽然许多种类已经灭绝了，但幸运的是，出于尊重我们成功地保留下几个种类。

林恩·马尔科姆：为了这片基因宝库能够继续留存，新西兰正在担负起日益增长的责任。

生物学家：你只须环视四周就能发现新西兰就生物多样性而言是多么富有啊！一排排咖喱树生长在山腰上，巨大蕨类植物延生在我们所站的这条河流岸边，还有鸟类，我一踏出后门就听到鹬鸵在灌木丛中的叫声，这真是让人难忘的事情。新西兰拥有如此丰富的资源，不论是目前还是为将来，自然保护在这里都十分重要。

林恩·马尔科姆：新西兰是太平洋上一个迷人的古老群岛，距离澳大利亚东南部2000公里。几乎所有植物和无脊椎动物物种以及半数的鸟类在世界上其他地方都是没有的。但是这个国家成为生物多样性热点的原因在于它的本地野生生物和大量繁殖的外来害虫间出现的灾难性不平衡。

一切是从近1000年前从玻利尼西亚来的太平洋鼠开始的，600年后挪威鼠跳离库克队长的"奋进号"也进入新西兰，于是太平洋鼠的数量开始逐渐增加。但是奥克兰大学的入侵物种研究专家米克·克劳特指出，入侵物种并不只是老鼠。

米克·克劳特：被引入新西兰并存活下来的哺乳动物现已超过30种。最近引入的物种包括白鼬、雪貂、黄鼠狼、猫、狗以及澳大利亚的刷尾负鼠，外来物种还在不断增加。它们造成了灾难性的破坏，一些物种已经因此灭绝了。我认为这是新西兰环保面临的最重大的挑战。

生物学家：在一片食肉动物不受控制的灌木丛里，每公顷的新西兰森林就有2到6只船鼠和3到13只负鼠。所以在新西兰，鸟类处处都会受到这些食肉动物的长期威胁。

林恩·马尔科姆：为了发展毛皮工业,1837年新西兰首次引进了澳大利亚刷尾负鼠。但是由于这里没有哺乳动物类的竞争者，据估计，负鼠的数量增长到了7000万只。土地保护研究机构的布鲁斯·布恩斯说，它们正在大肆破坏这个国家的植物和野生动物。

布鲁斯·布恩斯：在森林里，繁茂的树叶对负鼠来说就像是冰淇淋，它们饱餐后只剩下没有树叶的枯树。甚至在我们从未开发过的的原始丛林，我们发现普通的新西兰鸟类数量也在持续下降。

林恩·马尔科姆：新西兰大陆上由这些害虫造成的灾害在100多年前引起了政府的注意。新西兰拥有大约1000个大小不同的岛屿，其中有一些尚无人居住，这些未开发的岛屿可首先用作拯救濒危物种的小型方舟或救生船。