Road Noise Makes Birds' Lives Tougher
道路噪声使鸟类生存艰难
By playing road noise where there was no road, researchers were able to gauge the effect of the noise on bird behavior without having to deal with the effect of the road itself.
通过在没有道路的地方播放道路噪声，研究人员能够测量噪声对鸟类行为的影响，且不会受到道路的其他影响。
撰文\播音：贾森·G·戈德曼（Jason G. Goldman）
翻译：杨枭
审校：丁可含
It's hard to be a bird in our human-dominated world.
在人类主宰的世界里做一只鸟很难。
You can barely hear yourself sing, let along hear the songs of your friends… and you can forget about hearing a predator. Noise is almost everywhere. Especially noise from traffic. A whopping 83 percent of the surface of the continental U.S. is within just one kilometer of a road.
你几乎听不到自己歌唱，更别说你朋友的歌声了……还有你可能忘记听到了捕食者的声音。噪音几乎无处不在。特别是交通噪音。美国83％的地区距离公路一公里以内。
Researchers have tried to assess the impact of road noise on animals by, understandably, looking at animals living near noisy roads. The problem is that noisy roads are both noisy, and well, they're roads. It's hard to separate the two.
研究人员试图评估道路噪声对动物的影响，不难理解，通过观察生活在热闹的道路附近的动物。问题是热闹的道路既产生噪音，又是重要的交通干线。
"And so we figured out a way to have just the noise without any of the other effects of the road, and to do that we ran speakers through a forest where there was no road."
“为此我们想出一个办法来在只有噪声的情况下避免道路其它方面的影响，即在没有公路的森林中用扬声器来播放噪声。”
Chris McClure, a biologist at Boise State University and The Peregrine Fund. He and his team built their audio phantom road at a popular stopover site for birds in Idaho as they fly south for the winter.
克里斯·麦克卢尔（Chris McClure）是博伊西州立大学和百富勤基金会（The Peregrine Fund）的生物学家。在爱达荷州一个受冬天迁往南方鸟类欢迎的中途停留站点，他和他的团队建造了它们的音频幻象道路。
While the noise kept lots of birds away, some stuck around. But they had trouble putting on enough weight to fuel the next leg of their migratory journey.
尽管噪声驱赶了大量鸟类，但有些仍会在周围徘徊。但是它们在为下段迁徙旅程增重蓄能方面出现了困难。
"They have to fatten up but they also have to not get eaten by a predator. And those two things are in conflict. Because to eat, they have to look down, which means they aren't looking at predators."
“它们必须增重，但又不能被捕食者吃掉。但这两件事是相互矛盾的。因为找东西吃要向下看，这意味着它们不能注意捕食者。”
And when it's too loud, they can't hear the alarm calls of other birds. So they have to waste time looking for predators instead of foraging. The study is in the journal Animal Conservation. [C.J.W. McClure et al., Noise from a phantom road experiment alters the age structure of a community of migrating birds]
当噪声过大时，它们无法听到其它鸟的警报。于是它们不得不白费时间寻找捕食者而不是觅食。这项研究发表在期刊《动物 保护》上。
By 2050, it's thought that enough new roads will be built to circle the planet more than 600 times. But there's an easy solution to the noise problem.
到2050年，预计将建造的新道路足够圈环绕地球600圈。但解决噪声问题其实有一个简单的方法。
"Lowering speed limits does a lot."
“降低时速限制非常有用。”
So next time you're driving through nature, just slow down a little. It’s safer for you and the wildlife. And you can enjoy the view a little longer.
因此，当下次你穿过丛林时，请放慢点儿速度。这对你和野生动物都安全。你还能多享受会儿风景。
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