科学家畅游太平洋“鲨鱼高速公路”

科学家畅游太平洋“鲨鱼高速公路”

For the first time, scientists have videotaped sharks traveling a 500-mile-long "shark highway" in the Pacific, and they plan to turn it into a protected wildlife corridor in the ocean.

科学家们首次拍摄了鲨鱼在太平洋上行驶500英里长的“鲨鱼高速公路”的录像，并计划将其变成海洋中受保护的野生动物走廊。

Biologists have been attaching electronic tags to sharks near Costa Rica for years. They knew the sharks sometimes traveled south to the Galapagos Islands, but they'd never actually witnessed it. And they needed scientific — and visual — evidence to make their case for protecting the route.

多年来，生物学家一直在哥斯达黎加附近的鲨鱼身上安装电子标签。他们知道鲨鱼有时会向南游到加拉帕戈斯群岛，但他们从未亲眼目睹过。他们需要科学的和视觉的证据来证明他们保护这条路线的理由。

And they waited, and waited, spending hours watching live video of nothing but blue water — until dozens of sharks suddenly swam out of the gloom and into view. "Amazing," biologist Mario Espinoza says of the moment. "We actually documented over 16 species of sharks and fish, also sea turtles and dolphins. ... It's really surprising to see that many animals."

他们等了又等，花了好几个小时观看现场录像，只看到蓝色的海水——直到几十条鲨鱼突然从阴暗处游出来，进入视野。“太棒了，”生物学家马里奥·埃斯皮诺萨谈到这一刻时说。“我们实际上记录了超过16种鲨鱼和鱼类，还有海龟和海豚。。。看到这么多动物真是令人惊讶。”

Sharks dominated — mostly hammerheads but also thresher sharks and silky sharks. Sometimes a single video frame captured dozens of them. What the scientists were witnessing is a continuous "swimway" of large marine animals. It starts in Cocos Island in Costa Rica and extends to the Galapagos.

鲨鱼占主导地位——大多数是双髻鲨，也有长尾鲨和丝鲨。有时一个视频帧就能捕捉到几十个。科学家们目睹的是大型海洋动物的持续“游泳路径”。它始于哥斯达黎加的科科斯岛，一直延伸到加拉帕戈斯群岛。

The route follows a range of underwater mountains. Some of their peaks extend fairly close to the surface. "So this was the first time we actually documented animals using these seamounts," Espinoza says. "We don't know exactly whether they are feeding or they're like stopping by or using these seamounts as navigation routes."

路线沿着一系列水下山脉而行。有些山峰延伸到离海面相当近的地方。埃斯皮诺萨说:“所以这是我们第一次真正记录动物使用这些海底山。”“我们不知道它们到底是在觅食，还是在这里停留，或者把这些海底山脉作为导航路线。”

Road signs, perhaps, or drive-through restaurants.

也许是路标，或者是免下车餐厅。

Espinoza is at the University of Costa Rica, and the expedition was organized by a Costa Rican group called Pacifico. Zdenka Piskulich, president of the Pacifico Foundation, says it's a challenge to get people interested in some sort of fish corridor in the middle of the ocean. "But finally we have visual evidence that there is a huge abundance in this area that needs to be protected, that there really is a highway," she says.

埃斯皮诺萨在哥斯达黎加大学工作，这次探险是由一个名为Pacifico的哥斯达黎加小组组织的。Pacifico基金会主席兹登卡·皮斯库里奇表示，让人们对海洋中的某种鱼类走廊产生兴趣是一个挑战。“但最终我们有了视觉证据，这一地区有大量的鱼类需要保护，这确实是一条高速公路，”她说。

Cocos Island and the Galapagos already have protected areas for fish, but the highway isn't part of that, according to Lee Crockett of the Shark Conservation Fund, one of the effort's sponsors.

鲨鱼保护基金会的李•克罗克特表示，科科斯岛和加拉帕戈斯群岛已经建立了鱼类保护区，但这条高速公路并不在其中。他是这项工作的发起人之一。

"Once [sharks] get outside the protected area, its fair game," he says. "And there's lots of high seas fishing for tuna. It's mostly long lines, and they catch a lot of sharks and a lot of turtles." Some hammerhead shark species are endangered and others are in decline, as well as many turtle species.

他说:“一旦[鲨鱼]离开了保护区，它就成了公平的猎物。”“还有很多人在公海上捕捞金枪鱼。他们会排很长的队，他们会钓到很多鲨鱼和海龟。”一些双髻鲨物种濒临灭绝，另一些物种正在减少，还有许多海龟物种也是如此。

The research team and its sponsors are hoping to establish something new here: a marine protected area that's not just a patch of ocean or reef, but a wildlife corridor in the ocean that extends for hundreds of miles. "That's why we're excited about this as kind of the next step in conservation," Crockett says, "to establish these corridors or swimways between these protected areas so they get complete protection."

研究团队及其赞助商希望在这里建立一个新的东西:一个海洋保护区，它不仅仅是一片海洋或珊瑚礁，而是一个绵延数百英里的海洋野生动物走廊。克罗克特说:“这就是为什么我们对这一保护的下一步感到兴奋，在这些保护区之间建立这些走廊或游泳路径，这样它们就能得到完全的保护。”

It would be a highway that doesn't go through mountains, but above them. One with a great view, for sure, but unless you're a shark, probably not a place where you'd want to hitchhike.

这条高速公路不会穿过山脉，而是在山上。当然是一个视野绝佳的地方，但除非你是条鲨鱼，否则可能不是一个你想搭便车的地方。