萨布鲁的大象 The Elephants of Samburu

The Elephants of Samburu
An African Love Story. 一个非洲大陆的爱情故事。


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9月号/2008
凉爽的向晚时分，直升机升空，引来兀鹰紧跟在后。飞行员从后方逼近象群，随即降低高度盘旋在大象背后，好让机上的射手以半自动步枪精确瞄准脑部。通常一发子弹就足以杀死一头大象。在象群中，汇聚了集体智慧的女家长首先倒地，接着比较年轻的母象和幼象聚集在尸体四周，然后被射手一一扑杀，直到全部倒地为止。纵使有大象幸存下来，但在失去至亲同伴之后，牠们也无法正常生活。空中猎杀一结束，就有一组地面人员马上赶抵现场，解决少数还没断气的大象。然后工作人员开始支解大象的尸体，并以卡车把象皮、象肉及象牙载运到南非克鲁格国家公园内的屠宰场进行处理。遗留在原地的只剩大象的内脏——以及血染的地面。
为了抑制克鲁格大象的总数增加，从1967年开始，有1万4562头的大象遭到扑杀，直到南非在1995年禁止这种惯常做法。「这种做法真的让人非常心痛，」伊恩．怀特说。他长期以来一直是园内的大象专家，目睹过许多扑杀行动。「你必须逼自己忘记这件事，要不然一定会发疯。」
而今，大象专家却被迫重新考虑扑杀。虽然肯亚和其它地方的盗猎行为仍然对大象造成威胁，但由于非洲南部的保育措施成效卓越，而使得象群的数量激增。自从南非颁布扑杀禁令后，至今13年来克鲁格国家公园的大象数量已经从8000头增加到超过1万3000头。每一头大象一天的食量高达180公斤；牠们破坏植被、扯倒树木或是将树木连根拔起以及剥食树皮，严重改变了地景。饥饿的大象加上吞噬倒树与幼树的野火，已开始把克鲁格国家公园部分丛林茂密的热带草原转变成了灌丛草原，为斑马之类的草食性动物提供了栖地，却破坏了老鹰及其它鸟类的营巢之所。
有鉴于此，南非环境与观光部最近召开了大象科学圆桌会议，讨论该如何管理持续增加的象群，以及是否该重新开放扑杀。与会者共计有18位享誉国际的专家，其中大多数来自南非。会中有人提出异议：扑杀会增加象牙的累积数量，迫使1989年起生效的国际象牙买卖禁令面临更大的解禁压力。一旦买卖禁令解除，象牙市场就会开始活络，连带促使大象盗猎更加猖獗。会中另一个反对声音指出：扑杀会阻挠大自然的进程。来自肯亚的伊恩．道格拉斯—汉米尔顿表示：「在某些情况下，我宁愿象群是因饿死而瓦解的，而不是被扑杀消灭的。」然而，在「国际保育服务」担任顾问的动物学家约翰．汉克斯却指出，在某些特定的情势，以及别无他法的状况下，公园管理员可能得进行扑杀，以维护生物多样性。「我们把大象限制在园区里，创造出了一个非常不自然的人为环境。」
最后与会专家同意：在克鲁格国家公园，扑杀并非立即必要的措施，但若其它方法无法阻止大象摧毁其它动物赖以维生的栖地，则应准许扑杀。这个建议已经列入今年5月生效的南非最新大象管理政策里。该政策虽然承认大象具有「感知的天性、高度组织的社会结构，以及沟通的能力」，但是仍允许以扑杀作为最后手段。
避免扑杀大象的方法之一是替母象注射避孕剂。但每头大象的避孕成本超过150美元，而且必须一再注射。
另一个方法是把大象迁移他处。用卡车把象群数量过多区域的多余大象移出，也是所费不赀，况且南非足以容纳大象涌入的区域已所剩无几。从1979年开始吸纳克鲁格国家公园大象的大约30个小型保留区，现在也面临了管控自己区内大象日益增加的难题。
南非普利托里亚大学的鲁迪．范阿尔德与其它圆桌会议的专家都赞成，要解决象群数量问题，应该采取多管齐下的策略，例如拆除围篱、停止人工供水、建立走廊和超大型国家公园等。切断供水可避免大象顺利捱过干旱以及集中在单一地点；因为干旱有助于维持象群数量的平衡。而建立走廊与大型公园则有助于大象分散至更广阔的地表上，以减少栖地的季节性及长期压力（但范阿尔德认同，如果大象的新迁居地太拥挤，则可能得允许当地人猎杀一定数量的大象）…。

Family Ties
The Elephants of Samburu
By David Quammen
National Geographic Contributing Writer
Photograph by Michael Nichols
National Geographic Photographer
The biologist Iain Douglas-Hamilton is walking up on an elephant, a sizable young female, nubile and shy. Her name, as she's known to him and his colleagues, is Anne. She stands half-concealed within a cluster of trees on the knob of a hill in remote northern Kenya, browsing tranquilly with several members of her family. Around her neck hangs a stout leather collar along which, at the crest of her shoulders, like a tiny porkpie hat, sits an electronic transmitter. That transmitter has allowed Douglas-Hamilton, flying in by Cessna, proceeding here on foot through the tall grass and acacia scrub, to find her. Crouching now, he approaches upwind to within 30 yards. Anne gobbles some more leaves. She's oblivious to him, or maybe just not interested.

Elephants can be dangerous animals. They are excitable, complex, and sometimes violently defensive. Douglas-Hamilton is a world-renowned expert who has studied them for 40 years. Don't try this at home.

He wants a clear look at the collar. He has heard reports that it may be too tight—that she has grown into it since having been tranquilizer-darted, fitted, and thus recruited as a source of research data. Ordinarily, Douglas-Hamilton does his elephant-watching more cautiously, from the safe containment of a Land Cruiser, but no vehicle can drive this terrain, and Anne's comfort and health are at issue. The collar should hang loose, with a dangling counterweight below. He wants to be sure that Anne's isn't snugged up to her throat like a noose. But at present, amid the thicket, she's showing him only her imperious elephantine butt. So he creeps closer.

Three other men lag back. One is David Daballen, a bright young Samburu protégé of Douglas-Hamilton's, who often accompanies the boss on missions like this. The second man is a local guide holding a Winchester .308 rifle. The third is me. As we watch Douglas-Hamilton edging forward, we notice another female elephant, a big one, probably the group's matriarch, sidling around craftily on his right flank. We duck low to escape the matriarch's view. We freeze. As this female comes on, suspicious and challenging, Douglas-Hamilton seems unconcerned with her, but Daballen begins to look nervous. He is calculating (he'll tell me later) how fast an elephant might be able to charge across such a rocky, rubble-strewn slope.

Then the big female commits herself to a sequence of gestures suggesting nonchalance, if not outright contempt: She pisses torrentially, she defecates galumphingly, and she turns away.

Anne herself swings daintily out of the brush. She steps toward Douglas-Hamilton. The gap between them is 50 feet. For a few seconds the young female graces him with a frontal view of her large forehead, her flappy ears, her pretty tusks, as though posing for beauty shots in the glow of a flash. She gives him a profile. He raises his camera and clicks off several frames. Then she too turns and ambles away. Through his lens, in those seconds, he has seen that the collar hangs just as it should. The alarm was a false one. Anne is in no danger—or anyway, no danger of chafing or choking.

As we withdraw, circling back toward our vehicle, I think: So that's how it's done. Show a little caution, a little respect, get the information you need, back off. And everybody is happy. After four decades Douglas-Hamilton knows this species about as well as anyone in Africa. He has a keen sense, well earned by field study and sharpened by love, of the individuality of the animals—their volatile moods, their subtle signals, their range of personalities and impulses. Nothing about his interaction with Anne has prepared me for the moment, some weeks later, when I'll watch him charged, caught, thrown, and nearly tusked through the gut by an elephant.

SOON WE'RE ALOFT again in Douglas-Hamilton's Cessna, flying low over the contours of the landscape. It's his preferred style, flying low; why go up a thousand feet when you can caress the topography? So we rise and descend gently over the rocky slopes, the ridges, the dry acacia plains, the sand rivers, returning northeast toward a place called Samburu National Reserve. Just beyond the reserve sits a gravel airstrip and, not far from that, his field camp. We'll be home before dark.

Samburu National Reserve is one of the little known jewels of northern Kenya, taking its name from the proud tribe of warriors and pastoralists in which David Daballen, among others, has his roots. The reserve is a relatively small area, just 65 square miles of semiarid savanna, rough highlands, dry washes (known locally as luggas), and riparian forests of acacia and doom palm along the north bank of the Ewaso Ngiro River. Lacking paved roads, sparsely surrounded by Samburu herders, it teems with wildlife. There are lions, leopards, and cheetahs, of course, but also Grevy's zebras, reticulated giraffes, beisa oryx, gerenuks, Somali ostriches, kori bustards, and a high diversity of showy smaller birds such as wattled starlings, pin-tailed whydahs, and lilac-breasted rollers. But the dominant creatures are the elephants. They play a major role in shaping the ecosystem itself—stripping bark from trees or uprooting them, keeping the savanna open. They intimidate even the lions. They come and go across the boundaries of the reserve, using it as a safe haven from human-related dangers in a much larger and more ambivalent landscape.






Samburu, Shaba & Buffalo Springs (潵布日，沙巴以及水牛泉）
在干旱的肯尼亚北部，水就是生命。汹涌的Ewaso Nyiro(埃瓦索 奈若）河吸引了大量野生动物到它的岸边，创造出一片绿洲。

这些江水流经北部三个大保护区，Samburu, Shaba & Buffalo Springs (潵布日，沙巴以及水牛泉）。以浩大的Ol Olokwe(奥 奥罗克维）山为背景, 这是一个景色壮观的地方。

这里青葱嫩绿靠近河边的森林与干旱长着荆棘残根的平原旷野形成悬殊差别。Samburu(潵布日）由于有水源引来大批象群。在干旱季节，大象用其长牙掘入干枯的河床，挖出宝贵的水，这些水洞也成为其他野生动物的饮水焦点。

Samburu(潵布日）地区是去发现一些北部野生动物特殊种群的最好地区，其中有网状花纹长颈鹿和Grevy(格拉维)斑马。

沿河森林是许多鸟类的家园，这些鸟包括当地的品种，例如Palm Nut Vulture(棕榈果仁秃鹫）和Vinaceous Dove(葡萄酒色的鸽子）。这些森林也是许多豹子的栖息地，其常在黄昏时出没，能看到这种既美丽又难以捉摸的动物总是一种难得的享受。

狮子也常能在河岸上看到，在开阔平原能发现印度豹，偶然还可看到成群结队的非洲猎狗穿过保护区。

Shaba(沙巴）就是Born Free(自由出生)作者Joy Adamson(祖阿丹姆森)度过人生最后岁月的地方,她还曾在这里将一只豹子放生野外。这也是她最后一本书Queen of Shaba(沙巴皇后)中所描绘的内容。

近来，Shaba(沙巴）是电视流行系列节目Survivor Africa (非洲幸存者)的实景地点，这些可怜的参与者在这偏远的野外荒郊接受挑战．

Ewaso Nyiro(埃瓦索 奈若）河也是保护区周围各Samburu(潵布日）村庄的重要水源。Samburu(潵布日）民族的文化确实迷人，与Maasai(马赛）民族分享着大量传统和语言上的联系。

Samburu(潵布日）人常放牧骆驼及山羊，人们常能在保护区边界看见他们带着动物去饮水。

在保护区周围有一些私人禁猎保护区，与Samburu(潵布日）人紧密合作，共同保护其部落土地和当地野生动物。这些保护区向客人开放，那些对Samburu(潵布日）文化有兴趣者，很值得去参观一下。

整个Samburu(潵布日）地区是一个令人激动，漂亮迷人的地方，在那里观看深红色的日落沿河流勾勒出棕榈树林的轮廓，当一头豹子出现，开始捕猎时，那正是一天野生动物观光游的完美结束。




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