美国国家公共电台 NPR--A 100-year study could help save box turtles

A 100-year study could help save box turtles

Transcript¹

An ambitious long-term study of box turtles seeks to study the population across North Carolina to determine the health of the species over a hundred years.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

With a story about an animal that inspires a lot of love - and right now some concern - we're talking about box turtles. These are the turtles with rounded shells and yellow blotches². They roam around forests and backyards, looking like little wrinkled ETs. Their numbers appear to be in decline, which is why one group in North Carolina is doing an ambitious long-term study. NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce reports that they want this study to last 100 years, just like a box turtle can.

NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE³: Ann Somers is a retired⁴ biology professor. She's got white hair. She's 70 years old. When she was 7 years old, growing up in North Carolina, she found a box turtle in the woods. She looked the turtle in the eye, and it looked right back.

ANN SOMERS: I was just mesmerized⁵ by the fact that there was this beautiful creature that allowed me to touch them and to pick them up.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: Box turtles live across much of the Eastern and Midwestern United States. There's a half-dozen subspecies, so lots of people have had box turtle experiences, especially as kids, mucking around outside - like Trudie Henninger. She's a nature educator at the North Carolina Arboretum⁶. She has a turtle tattooed⁷ on her arm.

TRUDIE HENNINGER: I love them (laughter).

GREENFIELDBOYCE: Why? Like, you know, people like different things. What's the appeal of turtles to you?

HENNINGER: They've always been kind of that animal that has gotten me into nature and, like, always hearing my family's stories about turtles that they knew in their neighborhoods and that my granddad knew in his neighborhood.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: The trouble is, box turtles don't seem to be as common now as when people's parents and grandparents were kids. A few long-term studies have looked at turtles in, say, a single wildlife refuge and seen sharp declines over the last few decades - like, losses of 75%. But studies done in a small area might not reflect the bigger picture. That's why these two women and other volunteers are working on something called the Box Turtle Connection. For the last 14 years, it's been tracking thousands of turtles at dozens of sites across the entire state of North Carolina. Ann Somers says the plan is to keep going for a century. Box turtles are so long-lived, short studies just won't cut it.

SOMERS: It's a life span similar to a human life span. Humans can live to be a 100-year-old easily, if conditions are right.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: Conditions are increasingly not right for box turtles. Cars speed down highways. Lawnmowers slice through grass. Bulldozers raze⁸ forests. There's even international syndicates that want to snatch them up to sell them as pets overseas. One guy in North Carolina pled guilty this year to illegally collecting over 700 box turtles.

JOHN ROE⁹: I think the demand, for whatever reason, has gone up recently. And you see these criminal organized rings that are focusing on that, and that is a real threat.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: That's John Roe, a professor at the University of North Carolina. He took me to one of the study sites after I vowed¹⁰ to keep its location secret. We moved slowly through some woods, scanning the ground.

ROE: It recently rained, and you have a lot of mushrooms growing, and that's one of their preferred food items. So they should be out and active on the surface.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: We look around logs, under ferns. Then Roe points to some brown and yellow leaves.

ROE: Do you see it?

GREENFIELDBOYCE: Yes, I do.

ROE: So I had to look at it from, like, a different direction. I circled this, and then I finally saw the yellow head, and that's what stuck out to me.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: This small turtle is a male. You can tell by clues like the shape of the bottom shell. On the edge of the shell are some V-shaped notches¹¹. These were made deliberately¹² as part of the study. It's a unique pattern that identifies this turtle. Roe looks in the records. This turtle was first captured in 2015, then again in 2016. The critter patiently endures being measured, photographed, weighed.

So what do you think his days are like up here?

ROE: Oh, gosh. I often think about what a turtle might be thinking about just sitting around and - where the next mushroom bloom is going to be, or maybe a female is going to walk by today.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: He's attached radio transmitters to the shells of some turtles.

(SOUNDBITE OF RECEIVER BEEPING)

GREENFIELDBOYCE: He can find them with a receiver that beeps as he gets closer. Box turtles are homebodies. They mostly stick to the same small area - like, a few acres.

ROE: Sometimes we'll have a male that gets up and moves, like, a kilometer or two all of a sudden, totally out of the blue, unexpected. And then they'll come right back to the area where they were. And I don't know what he was thinking then. I call it his walkabout.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: Roe says when he first got involved with this long-term study, he was skeptical¹³ it could last a hundred years.

ROE: But then I went to my first Box Turtle Connection training meeting and saw the huge number of people who came from all across the state. That convinced me otherwise. I thought that this project does have a chance.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: If it succeeds, it'll be the biggest, longest study of box turtles ever, showing what lessons can be learned from knowing where box turtles are at risk and where they're thriving. The first 10 years of data were recently analyzed¹⁴, and so far they haven't seen any changes.

GABRIELLE GRAETER: One possibility is that we missed some of the declines - they've happened in the last 50 years and not just in the last 10 years.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: Gabrielle Graeter works for the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. She says, remember.

GRAETER: Ten years in the life of one of these turtles is not very long.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: It takes them almost that long to reach adulthood¹⁵. When she took me out to look for box turtles, we kept running into groups of children, campers. Brian Bockhahn of North Carolina State Parks asked them if they liked turtles.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: Yes.

BRIAN BOCKHAHN: On the count of three say, I like turtles. One, two, three.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: I like turtles.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: One of the kids starts telling us about a box turtle he saw. Who knows? One day he might end up working on this project and might even be around to see the final results in the year 2108.

Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 blotches   

n.（皮肤上的）红斑，疹块( blotch的名词复数 )；大滴 [大片]（墨水或颜色的）污渍

参考例句：

• His skin was covered with unsightly blotches. 他的皮肤上长满了难看的疹块。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• His face was covered in red blotches, seemingly a nasty case of acne. 他满脸红斑，像是起了很严重的粉刺。 来自辞典例句

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。

5 mesmerized   

v.使入迷( mesmerize的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The country girl stood by the road, mesmerized at the speed of cars racing past. 村姑站在路旁被疾驶而过的一辆辆车迷住了。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• My 14-year-old daughter was mesmerized by the movie Titanic. 我14岁的女儿完全被电影《泰坦尼克号》迷住了。 来自互联网

6 arboretum   

n.植物园

参考例句：

• We can go to the arboretum in the southern suburb.我们可以去南郊的植物园。
• The arboretum is full of exotic flowers and rare herbs.植物园里长满了各种奇花异草。

7 tattooed   

v.刺青，文身( tattoo的过去式和过去分词 )；连续有节奏地敲击；作连续有节奏的敲击

参考例句：

• He had tattooed his wife's name on his upper arm. 他把妻子的名字刺在上臂上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The sailor had a heart tattooed on his arm. 那水兵在手臂上刺上一颗心。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

8 raze   

vt.铲平，把(城市、房屋等)夷为平地，拆毁

参考例句：

• The nuclear weapons stored by the United States alone are sufficient to raze the planet.仅美国储存的核武器就足以毁灭地球。
• The earthquake made the city raze to the ground.地震把这个城市夷为平地。

9 roe   

n.鱼卵；獐鹿

参考例句：

• We will serve smoked cod's roe at the dinner.宴会上我们将上一道熏鳕鱼子。
• I'll scramble some eggs with roe?我用鱼籽炒几个鸡蛋好吗？

10 vowed   

起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• He vowed quite solemnly that he would carry out his promise. 他非常庄严地发誓要实现他的诺言。
• I vowed to do more of the cooking myself. 我发誓自己要多动手做饭。

11 notches   

n.（边缘或表面上的）V型痕迹( notch的名词复数 )；刻痕；水平；等级

参考例句：

• The Indians cut notches on a stick to keep count of numbers. 印第安人在棒上刻V形凹痕用来计数。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• They cut notches in the handle of their pistol for each man they shot. 他们每杀一个人就在枪托上刻下一个V形记号。 来自辞典例句

12 deliberately   

adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地

参考例句：

• The girl gave the show away deliberately.女孩故意泄露秘密。
• They deliberately shifted off the argument.他们故意回避这个论点。

13 skeptical   

adj.怀疑的，多疑的

参考例句：

• Others here are more skeptical about the chances for justice being done.这里的其他人更为怀疑正义能否得到伸张。
• Her look was skeptical and resigned.她的表情是将信将疑而又无可奈何。

14 analyzed   

v.分析( analyze的过去式和过去分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析

参考例句：

• The doctors analyzed the blood sample for anemia. 医生们分析了贫血的血样。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The young man did not analyze the process of his captivation and enrapturement, for love to him was a mystery and could not be analyzed. 这年轻人没有分析自己蛊惑著迷的过程，因为对他来说，爱是个不可分析的迷。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 adulthood   

n.成年，成人期

参考例句：

• Some infantile actions survive into adulthood.某些婴儿期的行为一直保持到成年期。
• Few people nowadays are able to maintain friendships into adulthood.如今很少有人能将友谊维持到成年。