黑喉雀赢得2019年澳大利亚年度鸟类奖

黑喉雀赢得2019年澳大利亚年度鸟类奖

The black-throated finch has been voted "bird of the year" in Australia for 2019, helping draw attention to the species' decline as human activities increasingly threaten its habitat. The finch's victory was reportedly driven by support from conservationists, who connected its plight to deforestation and bushfires in Australia, as well as opposition to a planned coal mine.

随着人类活动对其栖息地的威胁越来越大，黑喉雀被选为2019年澳大利亚的“年度鸟类”，这有助于引起人们对该物种数量减少的关注。据报道，黑喉雀的胜利是由环保主义者的支持推动的，他们将黑喉雀的困境与澳大利亚的森林砍伐和森林大火联系起来，同时也反对计划中的煤矿开采。

Photo: Eric Vanderduys/Stop Adani [CC BY 2.0]/Flickr

Black-throated finches once inhabited dry, grassy woodlands throughout northeastern Australia, gathering in small flocks to forage for seeds and insects. They experienced steep declines in the 20th century, though, and were last seen in the state of New South Wales in 1994, according to BirdLife Australia, leaving Queensland as their final refuge. There are two subspecies, and while both may be at risk, most of the concern focuses on the southern "white-rumped" variety, which now exists at only a few scattered sites. Its range has shrunk by about 80% in recent decades, and fewer than 800 individuals are thought to be left.

黑喉雀曾经居住在澳大利亚东北部干燥多草的林地，成群结队地寻找种子和昆虫。然而，在20世纪，它们的数量急剧下降，据澳大利亚鸟类保护组织称，它们最后一次出现在新南威尔士州是在1994年，昆士兰成了它们最后的避难所。有两个亚种，虽然它们都可能面临危险，但人们最担心的是南方的“白腰”变种，现在只存在于少数分散的地点。在最近的几十年里，它的活动范围缩小了80%，估计只剩下不到800只。

And now, with the southern subspecies limited to just a few enclaves, conservationists are worried a new danger is poised to wipe it out. Much of its remaining range falls within the footprint of the planned Carmichael coal mine, a controversial project that has been under consideration in various forms for about a decade. Although developer Adani Mining has scaled back the original scope of the project, it would reportedly still be one of the largest coal mines in Australia. Adani has offered to clear the land gradually, supposedly giving the finches time to move somewhere else, but this plan has been criticized by scientists.

现在，由于南方的亚种仅局限在少数几个飞地上，环保人士担心新的危险即将把它消灭掉。卡迈克尔煤矿是一个有争议的项目，大约10年来，人们一直在以各种形式考虑这个项目。尽管开发商阿达尼矿业已经缩减了原项目的规模，但据报道，它仍将是澳大利亚最大的煤矿之一。阿达尼已经提出逐步清理土地，据说这给了雀类时间迁移到其他地方，但是这个计划受到了科学家的批评。

Growing concerns about the mine played a big role in elevating black-throated finches to "bird of the year," but as Sean Dooley of BirdLife Australia tells The Guardian, that isn't the only reason they won. In addition to being threatened, he argues, they also happen to be beautiful. "As someone who has gone out and seen that bird in nature, they are subtly stunning," Dooley says. "No illustration I have seen has done justice to the beauty of the bird in real life. They are a literal breath-taker when you see them."

人们对矿难的担忧日益加剧，这在将黑喉雀提升为“年度最佳鸟类”的过程中发挥了重要作用，但正如澳大利亚国际鸟盟的肖恩·杜利告诉《卫报》的那样，这并不是它们获奖的唯一原因。他认为，除了受到威胁之外，它们碰巧也是美丽的。杜利说:“当有人出去看到那只鸟在大自然中的样子时，他们会感到微妙的震惊。”“在我所见过的插图中，没有一幅能真实地再现这只鸟的美。当你看到它们时，它们真的会屏住呼吸。”

Australia's bird of the year contest only began a few years ago, but while it's younger than a similar competition in New Zealand, it has quickly become a high-profile event. This year's poll even featured a scandal, thanks to the discovery of a sophisticated voter-fraud operation favoring the sulphur-crested cockatoo. Within minutes, the cockatoo received thousands of automated votes from the same location, along with other votes for the finch and rainbow lorikeet "in an attempt to disguise the ruse," according to The Guardian, which notes all the fraudulent votes were "promptly identified and removed."

澳大利亚的年度鸟类大赛几年前才开始，虽然它比新西兰的同类比赛年轻，但很快就成为备受瞩目的活动。今年的选举甚至出现了丑闻，这要归功于一项复杂的选举舞弊操作的发现，该操作有利于硫冠凤头鹦鹉。据《卫报》报道，在几分钟内，这只凤头鹦鹉收到了来自同一地点的数千张自动投票，以及其他“试图掩饰诡计”的雀和彩虹鹦鹉的选票。《卫报》指出，所有的欺诈选票都被“迅速识别并移除”。

And aside from that kind of unwanted attention, the contest's popularity has also helped it grow, Dooley says, shifting to focus less on already-famous birds than on those in need of more awareness. "People could be cynical and say nobody had heard of this bird five years ago, and that is exactly the point. That just shows how the awareness of Australian birds is growing," he says. "When we did the first poll in 2017 we essentially focused on birds we thought people would recognize. But the sad reality is that many of our birds are becoming iconic for all the wrong reasons; they are now emblematic of the extinction crisis."

杜利说，除了这种不受欢迎的关注之外，这项比赛的受欢迎程度也促进了它的发展，它不再关注那些已经出名的鸟类，而是关注那些需要更多关注的鸟类。“人们可能会冷嘲热讽，说五年前没有人听说过这种鸟，而这正是问题的关键。这仅仅表明了澳大利亚鸟类的意识是如何增长的，”他说。“当我们在2017年进行第一次民意调查时，我们主要关注我们认为人们会认出的鸟类。但可悲的现实是，我们的许多鸟类正因为各种错误的原因而变得具有标志性;它们现在是物种灭绝危机的象征。”