Last One
最后一个
这也许是我们最后一次看到这些动植物的样子了 。
In the United States, as elsewhere, stopping the countdown to extinction means preserving healthy habitat—the aim of the celebrated and scorned Endangered Species Act.
大风车带你看真实的世界
最后的挣扎
Last One
最后的挣扎
梅里特岛上的麻雀已不复见。最后一只黑海滩雀的长眠之地，是一只属于佛罗里达自然史博物馆鸟类典藏的玻璃瓶。这只鸟的眼睛上了厚厚的漆，羽毛被几乎填满瓶子的酒精弄得很凌乱；一张标签纸载明这只年老的公鸟死于1987年6月16日。牠死后三年半，一项简单扼要的条目出现在美国的《联邦公报》上，宣布黑海滩雀已经灭绝，并从联邦政府濒临绝种及受威胁的野生动物名单上剔除。无论是这种鸟本身，或是牠的关键栖地——佛罗里达州梅里特岛上的盐沼，这里也是肯尼迪太空中心的所在地——将不再受到《濒绝物种法》的保护。是什么杀死了梅里特岛的麻雀？一言以蔽之就是环境的改善。没有人食用黑海滩雀或是拿猎杀牠作为消遣；牠的巢并未遭到破坏；牠也没有突然被新出现的捕食者猎食。然而人类藉喷洒DDT抑制蚊子与建造封闭水塘让淡水植被取代盐沼而改变了生态系统，希望藉此改善自己的生活，却太晚才发现黑海滩雀在这片带状草地上曾经活得多么自在。一个物种的栖地永远消失后，下场就会像瓶中那只最后的麻雀。
自1973年12月尼克松总统签署《濒绝物种法》以来，过去35年它就像生物的中途之家、是有灭绝之虞的生物的合法保护。就某种程度而言，称它为《濒绝物种及栖地法》或许更精确，因为它的目标是藉由鉴定、而后保护物种的关键栖地来保护这些物种，例如北美斑鸮居住的老龄林与坦氏小鲈所在的小田纳西河。这项法案从签署时起就一直备受争议，原因并不是它试图拯救植物和野生动物，而是要拯救植物和野生动物赖以生存的栖地。这通常代表着防止人类以任何方式改变生态系统——而纷争就是因此而产生。
The final resting place of the last dusky seaside sparrow is a glass bottle in the Ornithology Collection at the Florida Museum of Natural History. The bird's eyes are heavily mantled, and its feathers have been ruffled by the alcohol that nearly fills the bottle. A paper tag states that the bird, an old male, died on June 16, 1987. Three and a half years after that sparrow's death, a terse entry appeared in the Federal Register announcing that the dusky seaside sparrow was now extinct and had been removed from the federal government's list of endangered and threatened wildlife. Neither the bird nor its critical habitat—the salt marshes of Florida's Merritt Island, which is
also the home of the John F. Kennedy Space Center—would be protected any longer by the Endangered Species Act.
What killed the sparrows of Merritt Island? In a word, improvements. No one ate the dusky seaside sparrow or hunted it for sport. Its nests weren't vandalized, nor was it suddenly preyed upon by a newly introduced predator. But by spraying with DDT to control mosquitoes and building impoundments that allowed freshwater vegetation to take over the salt marshes, humans adjusted the ecosystem—hoping to improve their own lives—and discovered, too late, how finely attuned to its home in the cordgrass the dusky seaside sparrow really was. That last bottled sparrow is what a species looks like when its habitat has vanished for good.
这里有更多的资讯:
世界各地庆新年 Ringing in the New Year around the world
你所不知道的美国总统 Inside the Presidency
沃尔特镜头下的运动员 Walter Iooss' 'Athlete'
失踪金字塔被发现 (Vedio)
智利才藤火山爆发
看看真正的雪莲长什么样
黄金的代价 The Real Price of Gold
丛林里的菲德尔卡斯特罗 Fidel Castro in the Jungle
赫夫纳的新双胞胎女朋友们 Hugh's new girlfriends
国家地理杂志浏览最多的新闻 Most Viewed of 2008
National Geographic 国家地理杂志图片集锦
中东危机系列报道 Crisis in Gaza |
发表于 2009-1-10 17:28
|