(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Jason Goldman.
Coyotes are now common residents of many large urban areas. And while it doesn't happen all that often, coyotes are increasingly coming into conflict with people and pets.
"They're these mid-sized carnivores, (though) most people see them just as large carnivores." University of Washington-Tacoma evolutionary biologist Christopher Schell.
"Being in a city like Los Angeles or Chicago or New York is just mind-boggling and awe-inspiring. In some instances, for a lot of people because they don't know much about the animals, it could be something that generates fear because of misunderstandings."
Schell wants to understand how coyotes come to feel so comfortable around people—so he can come up with strategies for preventing it. And he suspects it might have something to do with the parenting.
"Our main goal was to see and test whether or not parents that have extended experience with people and human disturbance get habituated to the point where they transfer that habituation and that fearlessness to their offspring."
Schell and his team focused on eight coyote families living at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Predator Research Facility in Utah. Though captive, they live in large enclosures and lead mostly typical wild lives. Typically the coyotes are fed in such a way as to minimize human contact. But for this experiment, the researchers did something different.
"Instead of just walking away immediately, we fed them, and then we just stared at them." Turns out that when parents became more fearless around people—that is, they became perfectly happy to eat while people were watching them—their offspring became more fearless as well. And each litter of coyote pups was more fearless than the last. In fact, the most cautious pup from the second litter was bolder than the boldest pup from the first litter!
That means that an entire family of coyotes can become completely habituated to humans in just two or three generations. And that's when they get into trouble. "Regardless of what type of behavioral phenotype an animal has, it seems like all of the animals, without any selective cost to being bold towards people, are finding out that being bold is an advantage in an urban area."
Which means those of us who live in coyote country need to work together to send a signal to coyotes that being bold is a disadvantage. And that starts with doing everything we can to ensure that our yards are as uninviting—and unappetizing—as possible.
Thanks for the minute for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Jason Goldman.
参考译文
这里是科学美国人——60秒科学。我是杰森·古德曼。
郊狼现在是许多大型城区的常见居民。虽然这种情况并不常发生，但郊狼与人和宠物之间的冲突正在日益增加。
“尽管大多数人认为它们是大型食肉动物，但实际上郊狼属于中型食肉动物。”华盛顿大学塔科马分校的进化生物学家克里斯托弗·谢尔说到。
“洛杉矶、芝加哥或纽约这样的城市有郊狼，这是令人难以置信且惊讶的事情。在某些情况下，许多人都会这样想，因为他们不太了解这种动物，所以会因误解而产生恐惧。”
谢尔想了解郊狼是如何做到在人类周围如此放松自在的，这样他就能想出防止这种情况发生的策略。他怀疑这可能与郊狼养育后代的方式有关。
“我们的主要目标是观察并测试对人类和人类干扰有丰富经验的郊狼父母，是否将这种习惯和不惧传递给了后代。”
谢尔及其团队主要研究了在犹他州的美国农业捕食者研究中心生活的8个郊狼家族。虽然是圈养，但它们生活在大型围场里，基本上过着典型的野外生活。通常，人们在喂食郊狼时会将人类接触降至最少。但是在这项研究中，研究人员采取了不同的方法。
“我们没有马上走开，而是给它们喂食，然后就盯着它们看。”结果发现，当郊狼父母对周围的人类越来越不害怕时——也就是说，它们会在人类的关注下极其开心地进食——它们的后代也会变得更无所畏惧。每一窝郊狼幼崽都比上一窝更无畏。事实上，第二窝中最谨慎的幼崽都比第一窝中最大胆的幼崽要勇敢！
这意味着整个郊狼家族可以在两三代之内完全习惯人类。这就是它们陷入麻烦的时候。“不管一种动物有什么样的行为表现型，似乎所有的动物都会发现，在没有任何选择成本的情况下，勇敢在城区中是种优势。”
这意味着，国家有郊狼存在的我们需要共同努力，向郊狼发出信号：勇敢是种劣势。我们要竭尽全力，首先是要确保我们的后院并不吸引人，也引不起食欲。
谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是杰森·古德曼。
译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
重点讲解
重点讲解：
1. come up with 想出，提出(计划、想法等)；
Several of the members have come up with suggestions of their own.
有几位成员提出了自己的建议。
2. get habituated to 习惯于…的；
According to this theory, people are less responsive to what they got habituated to.
根据这个原理，人们对于已经习惯了的事物会减少响应度。
3. stare at 凝视；盯着看；
Tamara stared at him in disbelief, shaking her head.
塔玛拉一边狐疑地盯着他看，一边摇着头。
4. regardless of 不顾；不管；不论；
It takes in anybody regardless of religion, colour, or creed.
任何人，不论宗教、肤色或信仰，都可以加入。
