雅思12test8passage2阅读原文翻译

雅思12test8passage2阅读原文翻译

第1段

There is a poem,written around 598 AD,which describes hunting a mystery animal called a llewyn.But what was it?Nothing seemed to fit,until 2006,when an animal bone,dating from around the same period,was found in the Kinsey Cave in northern England.Until this discovery,the lynx—a large spotted cat with tasselled ears—was presumed to have died out in Britain at least 6,000 years ago,before the inhabitants of these islands took up farming.But the 2006 find,together with three others in Yorkshire and Scotland,is compelling evidence that the lynx and the mysterious llewyn were in fact one and the same animal.If this is so,it would bring forward the tassel-eared cat’s estimated extinction date by roughly 5,000 years.

一首写于公元598年的诗歌描述了对一种叫做llewyn的神秘动物的围猎。但它究竟是什么?直到2006年，似乎都没有真实的动物能跟它对上号。当时，在英格兰北部的Kinsey洞穴里发现了一块可以追溯到大约同一时期的动物骨头。在这一发现之前，猞猁-一种耳朵尖端长着一撮絮状毛、皮肤上遍布斑点的猫科动物-一直被认为已经于6000多年前，英伦群岛居民尚未开始农耕时就已经在该地灭绝。但2006年的这项发现，再加上约克郡和苏格兰的其他三处发现，组成极有说服力的证据，证明猞猁和神秘的llewyn实际上是同一种动物。如果事实真的如此，那么这种絮状耳朵大猫的预估灭绝时间会再推迟大约5000年。

第2段

However,this is not quite the last glimpse of the animal in British culture.A 9th-century stone cross from the Isle of Eigg shows,alongside the deer,boar and aurochs pursued by a mounted hunter,a speckled cat with tasselled ears.Were it not for the animal’s backside having worn away with time,we could have been certain,as the lynx’s stubby tail is unmistakable.But even without this key feature,it’s hard to see what else the creature could have been.The lynx is now becoming the totemic animal of a movement that is transforming British environmentalism:rewilding.

然而，这还不是这种动物在英国文化中最后一次出现。一座来自Eigg岛的9世纪的石头十字架上显示，被一个骑在马上的猎手所追逐的猎物中，除了鹿、野猪和野牛之外，还有一只长着絮状耳朵的斑点大猫。如果不是这只动物的背部由于年深日久而显得模糊不清的话，我们本来是可以完全确定的。因为它那又短又粗的猞猁尾巴错不了。然而，即使没有这个关键特征，也很难说那只动物还能是别的什么。猞猁现在正逐渐成为一场改变英国环保主义信条的运动(重归乡野)的图腾。

第3段

Rewilding means the mass restoration of damaged ecosystems.It involves letting trees return to places that have been denuded,allowing parts of the seabed to recover from trawling and dredging,permitting rivers to flow freely again.Above all,it means bringing back missing species.One of the most striking findings of modern ecology is that ecosystems without large predators behave in completely different ways from those that retain them.Some of them drive dynamic processes that resonate through the whole food chain,creating niches for hundreds of species that might otherwise struggle to survive.The killers turn out to be bringers of life.

重归乡野意味着大规模恢复遭到破坏的生态系统。这涉及让树木回到那些光秃秃的地方，使部分海床不受拖网和捕鱼船的骚扰而得以休养生息，允许河流得以重新自由地流淌。最重要的一点是，这意味着将那些消失了的物种重新带回到自然环境中。现代生态学研究最令人震惊的发现之一是，没有大型捕猎动物生活在其中的生态系统，会与保有它们的生态系统以完全不同的方式来运转。一些猎食动物驱动着能震荡整条食物链的动态进程，为成百上千个原本可能得挣扎求存的物种创造出生存的一席之地。杀手最终其实是生命的赋予者。

第4段

Such findings present a big challenge to British conservation,which has often selected arbitrary assemblages of plants and animals and sought,at great effort and expense,to prevent them from changing.It has tried to preserve the living world as if it were a jar of pickles,letting nothing in and nothing out,keeping nature in a state of arrested development.But ecosystems are not merely collections of species;they are also the dynamic and ever-shifting relationships between them.And this dynamism often depends on large predators.

这些发现为英国的物种保护工作提出了一个大大的挑战，因为这种工作到目前为止通常只是随机地选取一些植物和动物，然后再花费巨大的精力和财力去努力阻止它们发生变化。这是在尝试着将一个活生生的世界当作一罐泡菜那样储存下来，什么都不让进来，什么都不让出去。这就把自然环境保持在一种束手束脚的发展局限之内。然而，生态系统并不仅仅是物种的集合而已;它们还是物种之间动态的和不断变化的关系。而这种活力往往依赖于大型猎食动物。

第5段

At sea the potential is even greater:by protecting large areas from commercial fishing,we could once more see what 18th-century literature describes:vast shoals of fish being chased by fin and sperm whales,within sight of the English shore.This policy would also greatly boost catches in the surrounding seas;the fishing industry’s insistence on scouring every inch of seabed,leaving no breeding reserves,could not be more damaging to its own interests.

在海洋里，潜在的发展空间更为广阔：通过保护大片海域不受商业捕捞的侵扰，我们就有可能再一次见到18世纪的文学作品所描绘的景象：从英国海滩极目远眺之处，巨大的鱼群被长须鲸和抹香鲸一路追逐。这个政策还能极大地提高周边海域的捕捞量;捕鱼业目前坚持搜刮每一寸海床、不留下任何休养繁殖余地的做法不可能比任何其他举动都更加有损于其自身利益了。

第6段

Rewilding is a rare example of an environmental movement in which campaigners articulate what they are for rather than only what they are against.One of the reasons why the enthusiasm for rewilding is spreading so quickly in Britain is that it helps to create a more inspiring vision than the green movement’s usual promise of‘Follow us and the world will be slightly less awful than it would otherwise have been’.

在整场环保运动中，“重归乡野”是一个罕有的例子，因为其推行者们明确表达了他们想要支持达成什么而不仅仅只是反对什么。人们对“重归乡野”的热情之所以在英国传播得如此迅速，原因之一在于它有助于创造出一个更加令人振奋的前景，而不是环保运动通常保证的“跟着我们走，世界就会比它本来可能成为的那副样子稍微少糟糕一点。

第7段

The lynx presents no threat to human beings:there is no known instance of one preying on people.It is a specialist predator of roe deer,a species that has exploded in Britain in recent decades,holding back,by intensive browsing,attempts to re-establish forests.It will also winkle out sika deer:an exotic species that is almost impossible for human beings to control,as it hides in impenetrable plantations of young trees.The attempt to reintroduce this predator marries well with the aim of bringing forests back to parts of our bare and barren uplands.The lynx requires deep cover,and as such presents little risk to sheep and other livestock,which are supposed,as a condition of farm subsidies,to be kept out of the woods.

猞猁对人类完全不构成威胁：没有任何已知的关于猞猁袭击人的记载。它专门捕猎孢子，而该物种近几十年来在英国的数量呈爆炸式增长。由于大量啃食植被而妨碍了人们试图重建森林的努力，猞猁也偏爱猎食梅花鹿：人类几乎完全没可能控制得住这个外来物种，因为它的藏身之处位于无法穿行的小树植被丛中。重新引人给猁这种猎食者的尝试能很好地契合于让我们的一些荒芜之地重新被森林覆盖的目标。猞猁需要地深林密的生活场所，因此对羊群和其他牲畜几乎不构成什么风险，因为后者作为农牧生产资料一般都会被限制在林地之外的场所活动。

第8段

On a recent trip to the Cairngorm Mountains,I heard several conservationists suggest that the lynx could be reintroduced there within 20 years.If trees return to the bare hills elsewhere in Britain,the big cats could soon follow.There is nothing extraordinary about these proposals,seen from the perspective of anywhere else in Europe.The lynx has now been reintroduced to the Jura Mountains,the Alps,the Vosges in eastern France and the Harz mountains in Germany,and has re-established itself in many more places.The European population has tripled since 1970 to roughly 10,000.As with wolves,bears,beavers,boar,bison,moose and many other species,the lynx has been able to spread as farming has left the hills and people discover that it is more lucrative to protect charismatic Wildlife than to hunt it,as tourists will pay for the chance to see it.Large-scale rewilding is happening almost everywhere—except Britain.

在最近去往Caimgorm山脉的一次旅途中，我听到若干位环境保护学家建议说：在20年之内猞猁就可以重新被放归到那里的野生环境中，如果树木回到了英国其他地区那些光秃秃的山上，这些大猫很快就会跟随而来。如果从任何欧洲其他地区的角度看来，这些建议都并没有什么非比寻常之处。猞猁目前已被重新放归到了Jura山脉、阿尔卑斯山脉、法国东部的Vosges山脉和德国的Harz山脉各处，并且还在许多其他地方自行适应了环境。自1970年以来，欧洲猞猁的数量已经翻了三倍，达到了大约10000只。与狼、熊、河狸、野猪、野牛、驼鹿和许多其他物种一样，猞猁能够随着农耕活动退出山地区域而繁殖四散，并且人们也发现保护这些有魅力的野生动物要比猎捕它们更加有利可图，因为旅游观光客们会为有机会看到野生动物而付费。大规模的“重归乡野”活动正几乎无处不在地进行着-只除了在英国。

第9段

Here,attitudes are just beginning to change.Conservationists are starting to accept that the old preservation-jar model is failing,even on its own terms.Already,projects such as Trees for Life in the Highlands provide a hint of what might be coming.An organisation is being set up that will seek to catalyse the rewilding of land and sea across Britain,its aim being to reintroduce that rarest of species to British ecosystem:hope.

在这里，人们的态度才刚刚开始转变。环保学家们正开始接受和承认：原先那种老旧的储藏罐模式正在失败，即使以它自身的评判标准来看也是如此。诸如“高地上的生命之树”这样的项目预示着我们接下来有可能达成什么样的目标。已建立了一个组织来试图推进英国上下的土地和海域加快重归乡野进程，其目标在于将那个最为稀有的物种重新引入英国的生态系统中来：希望。