CNN:要殺掉兩百萬隻貓,澳大利亞為何對野貓宣戰(雙語)

The case against cats: Why Australia has declared war on feral felines

By Julia Hollingsworth, CNN，Updated 1951 GMT (0351 HKT) April 26, 2019

作者：CNN的朱麗亞－霍林斯沃斯，更新時間: 東部時間下午 3:51, 2019年4月26日 (星期五)

(CNN)They're cute, they're fluffy, and they're public enemy number one in Australia.

(美國有線電視新聞網)它們看起來很可愛、皮毛蓬鬆柔軟，現在它們成了澳大利亞的頭號公敵。

Australia is at war -- with feral cats. By 2020, the government wants to kill two million free roaming cats, a large chunk of the total feral cat population, which is estimated to be between 2 and 6 million.

澳大利亞目前處於戰爭狀態--一場與野貓的作戰。到2020年，政府希望殺死200萬隻自由漫遊的貓，這兩百萬佔了野貓總數的很大一部分，估計澳洲的野貓總數在200萬至600萬隻之間。

Some areas of Australia have gone even further. In the northeastern state of Queensland, there's even a council offering a $10 ($7) bounty per feral cat scalp -- a policy People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has lambasted as "cruel."

澳大利亞的一些地區走得更遠。在昆士蘭州東北部，甚至有一個委員會提供每隻野貓頭皮10澳元 (合7美元) 的賞金--被「動物倫理對待人員」 (PETA) 組織稱為「殘忍」的一項政策。

Nor is the problem exclusive to Australia. In neighboring New Zealand, a prominent environmentalist has proposed a cat-free future, with both domestic and feral cats either controlled or culled.

這個問題也不是澳大利亞獨有的。在鄰國紐西蘭，一位著名的環保人士已提出「一個沒有貓的未來」的建議，無論家養貓還是野貓，要麼被控制，要麼被宰殺。

So why do the Antipodes dislike cats so much?

那麼，是什麼原因令澳新人如此不喜歡貓呢？

Killer cats殺手貓
The answer is simple: Cats, especially feral ones, are killers.

答案很簡單：貓，特別是野貓，是自然殺手。

The first cat is thought to have arrived in Australia at some point in the 17th century. Since then, their number has ballooned, with the population today estimated to cover 99.8% of the country. 

據認為，第一隻貓是在17世紀的某個時候抵達澳大利亞的。此後, 它們的數量激增，今天的貓跡估計已覆蓋了全國99.8%的地方。

Although feral cats belong to the same species as domestic cats, feral cats live in the wild where they are forced to hunt for survival.

雖然野貓與家貓屬於同一物種，但野貓生活在野外，它們不得不被迫在野外捕殺獵物求生存。

A rare burrowing bettong hides under a hollow log near Cygnet River on Kangaroo Island. Its species was driven to extinction on mainland Australia by foxes and feral cats. 

在袋鼠島的Cygnet河附近, 一個稀有的挖洞草原袋鼠藏在一個空心的原木下。該物種曾被狐狸和野貓逼到在澳大利亞大陸滅絕的境地。

Since they were first introduced by European settlers, feral cats have helped drive an estimated 20 mammal species to extinction, Gregory Andrews, national commissioner of threatened species told the Sydney Morning Herald. According to Andrews, that makes feral cats the single biggest threat to Australia's native species. 

受威脅中物種的國家專員格雷戈裡·安德魯斯在接受《雪梨先驅晨報》採訪時說, 自從它們首次被歐洲殖民者引入以來，野貓已經使得大約20種哺乳動物滅絕。安德魯斯認為，這使得野貓成為澳大利亞本土物種面臨的單一最大威脅。

And that's significant in Australia, an island nation that was cut off from the rest of the world for thousands of years. Today, an estimated 80% of Australia's mammals and 45% of its birds are found in the wild nowhere else on earth.

而這在澳大利亞意義重大，澳大利亞是一個與世界其他地區隔絕數千年的島國。如今在澳大利亞估計有80%的哺乳動物和45%的鳥類是在地球上其他地方野外找不到的。

For cats, native species are easy prey. Cats are believed to kill more than 1 million native birds, and 1.7 million reptiles across Australia everyday, a spokesperson for Australia's Department of the Environment and Energy told CNN, citing scientific research.

對貓來說，本土物種很容易成為獵物。澳大利亞環境和能源部發言人援引科學研究的理由告訴CNN記者，據信，貓每天在澳大利亞各地殺死100多萬隻本地鳥以及170萬隻爬行動物。

Some of the other species under threat from cats include the brush-tailed rabbit-rat, which the government classifies as vulnerable, and the rat-like golden bandicoot. 

受到貓威脅的其他一些物種包括被政府列為脆弱物種的毛尾兔，以及類似老鼠的金袋貍鼠。

"We are not culling cats for the sake of it, we are not doing so because we hate cats," said Andrews. 

安德魯斯說：「我們不是因為貓本身而要宰殺貓，我們這樣做不是因為我們討厭貓。」

"We have got to make choices to save animals that we love, and who define us as a nation." 

「我們必須做出選擇：拯救我們熱愛的動物，正是它們定義了我們的國家含義。」

Unlikely critics

難以信服的批評者

The government, which announced its plan to initiate a cull in 2015, has pledged $5 million to support community groups who can target cats on the front line. 

曾宣布計劃在2015年啟動貓宰殺行動的澳洲政府已承諾提供500萬美元，來支持能夠針對前線貓的社區團體。

But the plan has come under fire -- and surprisingly, conservationists are among the critics.

但這一計劃遭到了抨擊--令人驚訝的是，自然資源保護主義者也在批評者之列。

Tim Doherty, a conservation ecologist from Deakin University in Australia, agrees that feral cats take a "big toll" on Australia's native species, but believes the cull is based on shaky science. 

來自澳大利亞迪肯大學的保護生態學家蒂姆·多爾蒂同意野貓對澳大利亞本土物種造成了「巨大的損失」，但他認為宰殺行為是基於並不靠譜的科學研究。

"At the time, when the target was set in 2015, we actually didn't know how many feral cats there were in Australia," he said, adding that some estimates at the time put the number at 18 million, which he called a "gross over estimate."

「當時設定目標的時間是2015年，我們那時候其實都不知道澳大利亞有多少野貓，」他說，補充道，當時一些人的估計是1800萬隻，他稱之為「嚴重高估。」

"There's not really a reliable way to estimate across an entire continent, and if you're going to set a target, and if you want it to be meaningful, you need to be able to measure your progress towards it."

「根本沒有真正可靠的方法來估計整個大陸的野貓數量，如果你要設定一個目標，如果你想讓這個目標有意義，你需要能夠衡量你在實現這一目標方面的進展。」

Another, more pressing issue, is that merely killing a cat doesn't necessarily save bird or mammal lives -- the cat needs to have been living in an area that has threatened animals, he said.

另一個更緊迫的問題是，僅僅殺死一隻貓不一定能挽救鳥類或哺乳動物的生命--前提是這隻貓需要一直生活在一個威脅動物的地區，他說。

And bounties needed to be focused on a certain area, Doherty said. "It needs to be concentrated rather than a scatter gun approach," he said.

多爾蒂說，殺貓賞金需集中在某個特定地區。他說：「這需要集中做法，而不是散彈槍的方式。」

While cats are a big problem, the government had focused heavily on them at the cost of other, more politically sensitive issues like habitat loss caused by urban expansion, logging and mining.

雖然貓是個大問題，但政府關注點太多在野貓上實際上是犧牲了其他一些政治更敏感的問題，比如城市擴張、伐木和採礦造成的珍稀動物棲息地喪失的問題。

"There's a possibility there that cats are being used as a distraction to some extent," he said. "We also need to have a more holistic approach and address all threats to biodiversity." 

「有可能那裡的貓在一定程度上被用作分散注意力的幹擾話題，」他說。「我們還需要採取更全面的方法、應對生物多樣性面臨的所有威脅。

Other notable critics of the plan include British singer Morrissey and Brigitte Bardot. 

其他一些著名的批評者包括英國歌手莫裡西和布裡吉特·巴多。

'Cats to go'

「不要再養貓」

In New Zealand there have been calls to put a stop to domestic cats altogether. 

在紐西蘭，有人呼籲完全停止養家貓。

The remote island nation, which was one of the last places on earth to be reached by humans, has already announced a bold goal of becoming completely predator free by 2050. According to the government, rats, possums and stoats kill 25 million native birds each year.

這個偏遠的島國是地球上人類最後到達的地方之一，它已經宣布了到2050年完全沒有捕食者的大膽目標。據政府統計，老鼠、負鼠和白鼬每年殺死 2500萬隻本土鳥類。

New Zealand has no native land mammals besides bats, meaning a large variety of birds -- including the country's flightless Kiwi -- were able to thrive in a land without predators. Now, 37% of New Zealand's bird species are threatened. What's more, many of New Zealand's native birds are ground-dwellers, making them susceptible to cats, according to the country's Department of Conservation.

除了蝙蝠，紐西蘭沒有本地的陸地哺乳動物，這意味著各種各樣的鳥類----包括該國不會飛的基圍鳥----能夠在沒有捕食者的土地上繁榮興旺。現在，紐西蘭37%的鳥類物種受到威脅。此外，根據紐西蘭環保部的數據，紐西蘭的許多本土鳥類都是地面居住者，很容易成為貓的進攻對象。

A keeper holds two kiwi chicks in his hands in Berlin on June 19, 2012.

2012年6月19日, 一名飼養員在柏林手裡拿著兩隻獼猴桃小雞。

In 2013, well-known New Zealand economist Gareth Morgan drew the ire of cat lovers -- including the then-Prime Minister John Key, himself the owner of a cat named Moonbeam -- when he launched a campaign called "Cats to Go," encouraging cat lovers to avoid replacing their pet when it dies.

2013年, 紐西蘭著名經濟學家加雷斯·摩根發起了一項名為「不要再養貓」的運動，鼓勵貓愛好者在自己的寵物死後避免再養一隻替代者，這引起了貓愛好者的憤怒--包括當時的總理約翰·基，他本人也養了一隻名叫「月光」的貓。

"Cats are the only true sadists of the animal world, serial killers who torture without mercy," he said when add? 

「貓是動物世界中唯一真正的虐待狂，毫不留情地折磨獵物的連環殺手，」他補充說。

CNN has reached out to Morgan for comment.

CNN已聯繫摩根請其發表評論。

Two years later, then-Conservation Minister Maggie Barry urged authorities to start putting down stray cats to save native bird populations, and called for pet cats, which number around 1.134 million according to the New Zealand Companion Animal Council, to be limited to one or two per household.

兩年後，彼時的環保部長瑪吉·巴裡敦促當局開始殺死流浪貓以拯救本地鳥類種群，她還呼籲飼養寵物貓的數量限制為每戶只能有一兩隻（據紐西蘭陪伴動物委員會數據，寵物貓的數量約為134萬頭）。

And last year, Omaui, a small coastal town in New Zealand's South Island considered banning new domestic cats in the area -- although it has since backtracked on its plan.

而去年，紐西蘭南島的沿海小鎮奧莫伊考慮禁止在該地區新養家貓--儘管此後該計劃被放棄。

''We're not cat haters, but we want our environment to be wildlife-rich," Omaui Landcare Charitable Trust chairman John Collins said in August last year.

奧莫伊土地護理慈善信託董事長約翰·柯林斯去年8月說：「我們並不討厭貓，但我們希望我們的環境富含各種各樣的野生動物。」

Sunni後註：

一邊編譯這篇文章，一邊腳下有可愛的貓貓在蹭我的腳，忍不住思考本文話題，關於捕殺一種物種保護其他瀕危物種的案例在美國、英國、歐洲已有不少失敗案例，導致環境生態學者重新考量生態平衡的自身力量，比如黃石公園重新引進狼就是一個典型案例。一百年前，人類消滅了黃石的狼，以為可以保護其他物種，之後馬鹿的數量極速上升，幾乎完全消滅了柳樹叢；沒有了柳樹作為食物，河狸的數量也進而銳減；沒有了河狸壩，快速的地表流水下切侵蝕得更深了；地下水位隨之下降到了柳樹根力所能及之外的範圍。90年代中期美國將狼重新引入黃石公園，限制馬鹿的進食，希望重新改善黃石生態的整體面貌。類似案例在英國、歐洲都不少，雖然都未必就是鐵定的完美科研結論，但我們保護生態系統的方式不應只是簡單的修正——比如獵殺一個物種或重新引入某物種，而更要尋找方式去緩解當初導致它們消失的那些衝突，只希望澳新的科學研究再靠譜點吧。