英語聽力文摘 人兔大戰(zhàn)——生生不息

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Rabbits Down Under

In 1859, an unassuming Australian landowner named Thomas Austin got the hunting bug. Eager for something to shoot, he released twenty-four wild rabbits onto his property and had a jolly time tracking them down. Unfortunately, some of the rabbits managed to escape and, as rabbits are known to do, began to breed like…well, rabbits.

By 1900, Austin was dead but his unwanted legacy lived on in the form of a rabbit infestation that spread throughout the entire Australian continent. Desperate landowners scrambled to capture over two million rabbits per year, but this hardly made a dent in the rabbit population. Rabbits, it seemed, had taken up permanent residence down under.

With its long ears, twitching nose, and adorable hopping ability, the individual rabbit is fairly cute. Multiply that bunny by millions, however, and they begin to seem entirely sinister. The great Australian rabbit infestation was ecologically devastating. The buck-toothed creatures helped extinguish nearly one-eighth of Australia’s native mammal species and led to the extinction of countless numbers of plants, leading to widespread soil erosion.

The Australian government tried to corral the rabbits by building so-called rabbit-proof fences across vast stretches of land. Undaunted, the rabbits burrowed under. Finally, in the 1950s, the Australians resorted to chemical warfare, injecting several rabbits with myxoma, an experimental virus known to target and kill rabbits. The virus spread, and the rabbit population dropped from six-hundred million to one-hundred million.

But that’s still a lot of rabbits, and those with a natural resistance to the virus began breeding with a fury. And so, the rabbit wars carry on still.

澳大利亞的兔子

1959年，澳大利亞一位默默無名的地主——Thomas Austin在打獵上碰到了瓶頸。在強烈的打獵欲望的催使下，他在自家的土地上放生了24頭野兔。一時之間，他的一大樂趣便是找出那些兔子。可偏偏就有那么一些兔子逃了出去，做著我們所知兔子該做的事——生殖繁衍。

1900年，Austin去世了。但是他那些讓人頭疼的“遺產(chǎn)”卻已然遍布整個澳大利亞大陸，它們成群結(jié)隊地襲擊著一個個的莊園，讓人頭疼不已。農(nóng)場主們別無他法，只能大量地捕兔子。每年，農(nóng)場主們能捕到超過兩百萬只兔子，可是，這只能算是冰山一角，區(qū)區(qū)兩百萬對兔子這一群體不夠成任何影響。就這樣，兔子儼然已成澳大利亞的“常住居民”。

乍看上去，長長的耳朵，抽動的鼻子和蹦蹦跳跳的可愛姿勢，兔子真的是可愛得不行。當然，這只是針對一只兔子而言。如果是上百萬只兔子聚在一起，那簡直就是災(zāi)難。澳大利亞兔子的“橫行霸道”從生態(tài)學(xué)上來看簡直就是毀滅性的。這些長著小齙牙的生物“幫助”澳大利亞八分之一的土著哺乳動物走向滅絕，順道再讓不計其數(shù)的植物從此消逝，最后的結(jié)果便是，澳大利亞嚴重的大面積水土流失。

澳大利亞政府也曾圈出大片土地，圍上所謂的防兔圍欄，試圖將兔子都趕到一個地方。可是，這些兔子是毫無畏懼的，它們從地底挖了洞，就這樣就逃了出來。到后來的20世紀50年代，澳大利亞人終將化學(xué)藥物投入了人兔大戰(zhàn)中。人們將粘液瘤注入兔子體內(nèi)，粘液瘤是一種用來殺兔子的實驗用病毒。隨著該病毒的傳播，兔子數(shù)量從6億只急速減至1億只。

但是，1億仍是一個很大的數(shù)目。而且有些兔子天生就對這種病毒有抗體，接著這些兔子開始迅猛繁殖。因而，直至今天，在澳大利亞這片土地上人兔大戰(zhàn)仍在進行著。

Notes: down under 澳大利亞