國家地理:牧野分歧(2)

Austin oversees the herd of buffalo that graze below us, and the properties that contain them. He works for the American Prairie Reserve, a conservation organization seeking to create a massive protected area in central Montana and repopulate it with the wildlife of bygone days. Imagine: the plains as they looked in 1805, when explorer Meriwether Lewis climbed to the top of a similar bluff just east of here. "The whole face of the country was covered with herds of Buffaloes, Elk & Antelopes," Lewis wrote in his journal.

奧斯汀負(fù)責(zé)監(jiān)管我們腳下這群野牛和它們棲居的土地。他為美國大草原保護(hù)組織工作，該組織致力于在蒙大拿州中部建立廣袤的保護(hù)區(qū)，重新引入昔日的野生物種。試想：草原回復(fù)1805年的舊觀，如探險(xiǎn)者梅里韋瑟·劉易斯爬上東邊一道與這里差不多的懸崖時(shí)所見?！罢蟮氐教幨浅扇旱囊芭！ⅠR鹿和羚羊?！眲⒁姿乖谌沼浿袑懙?。

And then, in outrageously short order, the animals were gone. Historians estimate there were tens of millions of bison -- the term is interchangeable with buffalo -- when Lewis and fellow explorer William Clark traversed the northern plains; by the mid-1880s, fewer than a thousand remained. Other prairie creatures -- grizzlies, elk, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, wolves, swift foxes, black-footed ferrets -- saw similar declines as settlement spread west. The migrants slaughtered wildlife for cash and sport, built fences and roads that fractured the animals' habitat, trailed livestock that competed for forage and spread disease, and broke the prairie with their plows in order to farm it. Once broken, it takes decades, even centuries, to fix.

隨后，在短得過分的時(shí)間內(nèi)，動(dòng)物們消失了。歷史學(xué)家估計(jì)，劉易斯和一同探險(xiǎn)的威廉·克拉克穿越北方大平原時(shí)，這里曾有數(shù)千萬頭野牛，而到1880年代中期僅存不足1000頭。其他草原生靈--灰熊、馬鹿、叉角羚、大角羊、狼、草原狐和黑腳貂也都隨著美國人向西部進(jìn)發(fā)而經(jīng)歷了類似的驟減。新移民為了換錢和取樂屠戮野生動(dòng)物，又修路設(shè)籬令它們的棲息地支離破碎。遷來的家畜與野生物種爭奪水草，散播疾病。農(nóng)耕的犁耙撕破草原。一旦破碎，就需要幾十年甚至數(shù)百年來恢復(fù)。