Level 5 Reading 6B

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BUILDING THE ARK Zoos may have to choose between keeping the animals we most want to see and saving the ones we may never see again. When the Cincinnati Zoo opened its gates in 1875, there were perhaps as many as a million Sumatran rhinos foraging in forests from Blutan to Boneo. Today, there may be fewer than a hundred left in the world. Three of these were born in Cincinnati— a female named Suci and her brothers, Harapan and Andalas. In 2007, the zoo sent Andalas to Sumatra, where he has since sired a calf at Way Kambas National Park. If the species escapes extinction, it will in no small part be thanks to the work done at the zoo. And what goes for the Sumatran rhino goes for a growing list of species saved from oblivion. As the wild shrinks, zoos are increasingly being seen as modern-day arks: the last refuge against a rising tide of extinction. Who to Save? From the early 19th century, American zoos were involved in animal conservation. At the end of the century, the Cincinnati Zoo tried—unsuccessfully—to breed passenger pigeons, whose numbers were in rapid decline. (The bird thought to be the very last passenger pigeon, named Martha, died at the zoo in 1914; the building where she lived is now a memorial.) And in the early 20th century, when one count showed just 325 wild American bison left in North America, the Bronx Zoo started a captive-breeding program that helped save the species. Other animals that owe their existence to captive-breeding efforts are the Arabian oryx, the black-footed ferret, the red wolf, and the California condor. Because such programs tend to be expensive the condor program costs participating institutions up to $2 million a year— they're usually led by large, big-city zoos, but smaller zoos are increasingly joining in. The Miller Park Zoo in Bloomington, llinois, is one of the smallest zoos in the United States, at just four acres. However, it has bred red wolves and is hoping to breed the endangered Mount Graham red squirrel. "It's a small animal that doesn't require a huge amount of space," said zoo official Jay Tetzloff. But zoos also have to financially support themselves, and small animals just don't attract the crowds necessary to keep business in the black. Robert Lacy, a conservation biologist at the Chicago Zoological Society, says that zoos are going to have to make some difficult decisions. "Do you save a small number of large animals—the crowd favorites— or do you focus on saving a whole lot more little, unpopular creatures for the same amount of money?" he asks. Right now, the world's most threatened group of animals are probably amphibians. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)— which maintains what's known as the Red List— about a third of the world's frog, toad, and salamander species are at risk of extinction. Unfortunately for them, amphibians are far less popular than zoo species such as pandas or lions, which are not yet facing imminent extinction in the wild. But there are advantages to being small. For one thing a whole population of amphibians can be kept in less space than that required by a single rhinoceros. Others question whether zoos should devote resources to species, large or small, that are doing fine on their own. "I think it's a bit of a cop-out to say the public wants to see x, y, or z," says Onnie Byers, chair of the Conservation Breeding Specialist Group, part of the IUCN Species Survival Commission. "Plenty of species need exactly the expertise that zoos can provide. I would love to see a trend toward zoos phasing out species that don't need that care and using the spaces for species that do." Small Victories "It's an amazing responsibility to have half the remaining members of a species in your care," says Jim Breheny, the director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Bronx Zoo. He's standing in a state-of-the-art breeding facility filled with tanks of Kihansi spray toads— small, yellow, amphibians about 2.5 centimeters long. Depending on how you look at things, the Kihansi spray toad is either one of the most unfortunate or one of the luckiest species around. Until the late 1990s, the Kihansi spray toad was unknown to science. It was not actually identified until a hydroelectric project was already destroying its tiny habitat— five acres of mist-soaked land in the Kihansi River Gorge in eastern Tanzania. In 2000, recognizing that the project would probably harm the newly discovered species, the Tanzanian government invited the Bronx Zoo to collect some of the toads. Exactly 499 spray toads were captured and kept in the Bronx and Toledo Zoos in the United States. Just nine years later, as a result of disease and habitat destruction, the Kihansi spray toad was declared extinct in the wild. In the meantime, the zoos were struggling to figure out how to recreate the habitat that gives the spray toad its name. In the Kihansi River Gorge, a series of waterfalls had provided the toads with constant spray, so the tanks in the Bronx Zoo were provided with spray in the same way. Among amphibians, Kihansi toads are unusual in that the young are born live: At birth, they are no bigger than a match head. For the tiny young, the zoo had to find even tinier prey; eventually, they settled on tiny insectlike animals called springtails, which the researchers also had to figure out how to raise. But then keepers noticed that the toads seemed to be suffering from a nutritional deficiency, so a special vitamin supplement had to be designed. After some initial losses, the toads began to thrive and reproduce. By 2010, there were several thousand of them in New York and Toledo,

建造方舟 动物园可能不得不在饲养我们最想看到的动物之间做出选择 拯救那些我们可能再也见不到的人。 当辛辛那提动物园于1875年开放时， 从Blutan到Boneo，可能有多达一百万头苏门答腊犀牛在森林中觅食。 今天，世界上可能只剩下不到一百只。 其中三人出生在辛辛那提-- 一位名叫苏茜的女性和她的兄弟哈拉潘和安达拉斯。 2007年，动物园将安达拉斯送往苏门答腊岛，此后他在Way Kambas国家公园生下了一头小牛。 如果该物种免于灭绝， 这在很大程度上要归功于动物园所做的工作。 对于苏门答腊犀牛来说，越来越多的物种免于被遗忘。 随着野生动物的减少，动物园越来越被视为现代的方舟： 抵御灭绝浪潮的最后避难所。 该救谁？ 从19世纪初开始，美国动物园就参与了动物保护。 本世纪末，辛辛那提动物园试图繁殖旅鸽，但未能成功， 他们的数量正在迅速下降。 （这只被认为是最后一只旅鸽的鸟，名叫玛莎，于1914年在动物园去世； 她住的那栋楼现在成了纪念馆。） 在20世纪初， 一项统计显示，北美仅存325头野生美洲野牛， 布朗克斯动物园启动了一项圈养繁殖计划，帮助拯救了该物种。 其他因圈养繁殖而生存的动物是阿拉伯羚羊， 黑脚雪貂、红狼和加州秃鹰。 由于此类项目往往很昂贵，共管公寓项目每年为参与机构花费高达200万美元-- 它们通常由大型城市动物园领导，但越来越多的小型动物园也加入了进来。 伊利诺伊州布卢明顿的米勒公园动物园是美国最小的动物园之一，占地仅四英亩。 然而，它已经繁殖了红狼，并希望繁殖濒临灭绝的格雷厄姆山红松鼠。 动物园官员杰伊·泰兹洛夫说：“这是一种不需要很大空间的小动物。”。 但动物园也必须在经济上自给自足， 小动物根本无法吸引到维持商业盈利所需的人群。 芝加哥动物学会的保护生物学家Robert Lacy， 说动物园将不得不做出一些艰难的决定。 “你救了少数大型动物吗？这些动物是大众最喜欢的-- 或者，你是否专注于用同样的钱拯救更多小而不受欢迎的生物？”他问。 目前，世界上受威胁最大的动物群可能是两栖动物。 根据国际自然保护联盟（IUCN）-- 它维护着所谓的红名单-- 世界上大约三分之一的青蛙、蟾蜍和蝾螈物种面临灭绝的风险。 对他们来说不幸的是，两栖动物远不如动物园里的大熊猫或狮子受欢迎， 它们在野外还没有濒临灭绝。 但规模小也有好处。 一方面，与一头犀牛所需的空间相比，整个两栖动物种群可以放在更小的空间内。 其他人则质疑动物园是否应该将资源投入到那些自己表现良好的物种身上，无论是大型还是小型。 “我认为说公众想看到x、y或z有点逃避责任，” 保护繁殖专家组主席Onnie Byers说， 国际自然保护联盟物种生存委员会的一部分。 “很多物种都需要动物园所能提供的专业知识。 我很想看到动物园逐步淘汰不需要这种照顾的物种，并将空间用于需要这种护理的物种的趋势。” 小小的胜利 “将一个物种剩下的一半成员交给你照顾，这是一项了不起的责任。” 野生动物保护协会布朗克斯动物园主任吉姆·布雷尼说。 他站在一个最先进的繁殖设施里，里面装满了Kihansi喷雾蟾蜍的水箱-- 黄色的小型两栖动物，长约2.5厘米。 取决于你如何看待事物， Kihansi喷雾蟾蜍要么是最不幸的物种之一，要么是最幸运的物种之一。 直到20世纪90年代末，Kihansi喷雾蟾蜍还不为科学所知。 直到一个水电项目已经摧毁了它的小栖息地，它才被真正发现-- 坦桑尼亚东部Kihansi河峡谷五英亩被薄雾笼罩的土地。 2000年，认识到该项目可能会损害新发现的物种， 坦桑尼亚政府邀请布朗克斯动物园收集一些蟾蜍。 在美国布朗克斯和托莱多动物园，共捕获并饲养了499只喷雾蟾蜍。 仅仅九年后，由于疾病和栖息地的破坏， Kihansi喷雾蟾蜍在野外被宣布灭绝。 与此同时，动物园正在努力弄清楚如何重建喷雾蟾蜍的栖息地。 在Kihansi河峡谷，一系列瀑布为蟾蜍提供了源源不断的喷雾， 因此，布朗克斯动物园的水箱也以同样的方式配备了喷雾。 在两栖动物中，Kihansi蟾蜍是不寻常的，因为幼蟾蜍是活产的： 出生时，它们不比火柴头大。 对于幼小的幼崽，动物园不得不寻找更微小的猎物； 最终，他们选择了一种名为跳虫的昆虫状小动物， 研究人员还必须弄清楚如何提高。 但后来饲养员注意到蟾蜍似乎缺乏营养， 因此，必须设计一种特殊的维生素补充剂。 在经历了一些最初的损失后，蟾蜍开始茁壮成长并繁殖。 到2010年，纽约和托莱多有数千人，

so that year a hundred toads were sent back to the Kihansi River Gorge. But there was a problem: By diverting water from the falls, the hydroelectric project had eliminated the mist that the toads depend on. So the Tanzanians set up a system to restore the spray to the gorge. In 2012, the first toads bred in the Bronx Zoo were released back into the wild. The Frozen Zoo But for every success story like the Kihansi toad, there are dozens of other species on the edge of extinction. Many of these—the Sunalran orangutan, the Amur leopard, a songbird from the island of Kauai, and a thousand other species—can be found in a single room at the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research. Vials containing cells from each of these animals are being kept in a bath of liquid nitrogen where the temperature is minus 200°C. These thousands of identical-looking frozen vials represent what might be described as a beyond-the-last-ditch conservation effort: the Frozen Zoo. For now, at least, only one of the animals in the Frozen Zoo is actually extinct: the po'ouli, a fat bird with a sweet black face and a light-colored chest that lived on the Hawaiian island of Maui until 2004. But it seems safe to predict that in the coming years, more and more will become extinct. "I think there are going to be more and more species where the only living material left is going to be cells in the Frozen Zoo," says Oliver Ryder, the institute's director of genetics. Native to Central Africa, the northern white rhino is down to its last two females, after the death in 2018 of the last living male. The extinction of the species is, at this point, considered inevitable. After the last two rhinos die, they will, in a way, live on— one last hope, suspended in a frozen cloud. The Photo Ark The Photo Ark is a 20-year-long documentary project founded by National Geographic photographer and fellow Joel Sartore. lt is an extensive online archive of studio-quality photographs of animals around the world, from the largest carnivores to the smallest insects—all to showcase biodiversity. "We stand to lose half of all the planet's species by the turn of the next century," says Sartore. "The Photo Ark seeks to document as many of these as possible, using captive animals as ambassadors." More than 9,500 species have already been photographed since the project began, and Sartore plans to continue documenting all of the roughly 12,000 species inhabiting zoos, aquariums, and breeding centers around the world. Sadly, several of the animals he photographed have already become extinct. The goal of the project is to bring amazing images of animals to the public eye in order to inspire people everywhere to care about these species— and to do something to help save them before it's too late. "People won't work to save something if they don't know it exists," Sartore says. "That's where these photos come in."

那一年，一百只蟾蜍被送回了基汉斯河峡谷。 但有一个问题：通过从瀑布引水， 水电项目消除了蟾蜍赖以生存的迷雾。 因此，坦桑尼亚人建立了一个系统来恢复峡谷的喷雾。 2012年，布朗克斯动物园培育的第一只蟾蜍被放归野外。 冷冻动物园 但对于每一个像Kihansi蟾蜍这样的成功故事， 还有数十种其他物种濒临灭绝。 其中许多——苏纳拉猩猩、阿穆尔豹、考艾岛的鸣禽， 在圣地亚哥动物园保护研究所的一个房间里，可以找到一千种其他物种。 装有这些动物细胞的小瓶 被保存在温度为零下200°C的液氮浴中。 这些数千个外观相同的冷冻小瓶代表了可以描述的东西 作为一项超越最后一搏的保护工作：冷冻动物园。 至少目前，冷冻动物园中只有一种动物实际上已经灭绝： po'ouli，一只肥胖的鸟，有着甜美的黑脸和浅色的胸膛 直到2004年，他们一直住在夏威夷毛伊岛。 但可以肯定地预测，在未来几年，越来越多的物种将灭绝。 “我认为会有越来越多的物种 那里唯一剩下的活物质将是冷冻动物园的细胞，” 该研究所遗传学主任Oliver Ryder说。 北白犀牛原产于中非，只剩下最后两只雌性， 2018年，最后一位在世的男性去世。 在这一点上，该物种的灭绝被认为是不可避免的。 最后两只犀牛死后，它们将在某种程度上继续生存-- 最后的希望，悬在冰冻的云层中。 摄影方舟 《摄影方舟》是一个长达20年的纪录片项目 由《国家地理》摄影师兼同事乔尔·萨托雷创立。 这是一个广泛的在线档案馆，收藏了世界各地动物的工作室级照片， 从最大的食肉动物到最小的昆虫，所有这些都是为了展示生物多样性。 Sartore说：“到下个世纪之交，我们将失去地球上一半的物种。”。 “照片方舟试图记录尽可能多的这些， 利用圈养动物作为大使。" 自该项目开始以来，已经拍摄了9500多种物种， Sartore计划继续记录 栖息在世界各地的动物园、水族馆和繁殖中心的大约12000种物种。 遗憾的是，他拍摄的几只动物已经灭绝。 该项目的目标是让公众看到令人惊叹的动物图片 为了激励世界各地的人们关心这些物种-- 并在为时已晚之前采取行动帮助拯救他们。 萨托雷说：“如果人们不知道某样东西的存在，他们就不会努力去拯救它。”。 “这就是这些照片的用武之地。”

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