Elephants in Angola Have Learned to Navigate Minefields on Their Own安哥拉大象無師自通越雷區(qū)

文/杰克·弗拉納金 譯/劉瑩霈 審訂/仲文明

By Jake Flanagin

Elephants in Angola Have Learned to Navigate Minefields on Their Own安哥拉大象無師自通越雷區(qū)

文/杰克·弗拉納金 譯/劉瑩霈 審訂/仲文明

ByJake Flanagin

You might not think that the world’s heaviest land mammal would be good at avoiding landmines—especially since many mines are activated by weight compression. But US Army researchers are training tame African elephants to detect TNT, the AP reported in March 2015. According toThe Economist, the elephants have since proven quite adept at identifying explosive materials “amid decoy odours of bleach, petrol, soap, and tea.”

[2] Using animals to detect unseen hazards is known as “biodetection,”and elephants are particularly good at it. In Angola, one of the most minecontaminated countries in the world,wild elephants have been observed navigating dangerous areas repeatedly and safely—a skill they picked up on their own.

說到躲避地雷，你恐怕不會覺得這是大象的強項，因為它們是世界上最重的陸生哺乳動物，更何況許多地雷都采用了壓力觸發(fā)設置。但據(jù)美聯(lián)社2015年3月的一項報道稱，美軍研究人員正在訓練馴化的非洲象探測TNT炸藥；《經(jīng)濟學人》則報道稱，有證據(jù)表明，大象可以在“漂白劑、汽油、肥皂、茶葉的氣味干擾中”，熟練識別出爆炸物。

[2]利用動物探測潛在危險的做法被稱為“生物探測”，其中大象的表現(xiàn)尤為突出。安哥拉是世界上最飽受地雷之害的國家之一，但研究人員觀測到，生活在此的野象無師自通，多次在星羅棋布的雷區(qū)中安然穿行。

[3] The Angolan Civil War, fought intermittently between 1975 to 2002,was one of the bloodiest conflicts to take place on African soil. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst estimate that more than 800,000 people lost their lives during those 27 years, with a further 4 million displaced. Humans were not the only casualties. The conflict decimated Angola’s African elephant population—starving civilians hunted them for food,and rebels traded ivory for arms.

[4] When the conflict ended in 2002,very few elephants were left. Some began migrating of their own volition from neighboring Botswana—which is dealing with an elephant overpopulation problem (paywall)—others were airlifted in. Regardless, conservationists working on repopulating Angola’s reserves were understandably anxious at the prospect of large herds rumbling across landmine-strewn territory.

[5] A number of elephants were killed by landlines in the years immediately following the war, but since then,Botswanan elephants seem to have learned to sniff out the danger. “The landmine-death rate has fallen even as the elephant population has increased in Angola’s most heavily mined province,Kuando Kubango in the southeast,”The Economistreports.

[3] 1975年到2002年，安哥拉內戰(zhàn)頻仍，成為非洲大陸流血沖突最嚴重的國家之一。據(jù)馬薩諸塞大學阿默斯特分校的研究人員估算，在此27年間共有八十多萬人喪生，四百萬人流離失所。然而人類并非戰(zhàn)爭唯一的受害者，當?shù)氐姆侵尴笠采钍芷溲?。不堪忍受饑餓的平民捕殺大象果腹，叛軍則謀奪象牙換取武器，因而象群數(shù)量驟減。

[4] 2002年，戰(zhàn)爭硝煙散盡，安哥拉境內的大象也所剩無幾。與此同時，鄰國博茨瓦納象滿為患，一些大象自發(fā)遷徙，越境進入安哥拉，還有一些大象則由空運送達。然而，龐大的象群如何穿越雷區(qū)成了棘手的問題，重新劃定保護區(qū)的動物保護人士為此憂心忡忡。

[5]戰(zhàn)后初期幾年的時間里，有不少大象觸雷身亡。但此后來自博茨瓦納的大象似乎總能嗅出暗藏的危險?！督?jīng)濟學人》報道稱，“在地雷分布密度最大的省份之一——地處東南部的寬多-庫幫戈省，雖然象群數(shù)量增加，地雷致死率卻不斷下降”。

[6] “We have not seen any evidence of elephants being blown up or injured by land mine explosions in the three years we have been working in this area,”biologist Michael Chase, who studies elephant behavior in southeastern Angola, toldNational Geographic.

[7] It should come as no surprise.African elephants have one of the best senses of smell in the animal kingdom,with more genes dedicated to olfactory sensation than any other mammal. They have twice the number of smell genes as dogs and five times more than humans,a 2014 study published inGenome Researchclaims. They also have large olfactory bulbs and larger-than-average portions of the brain devoted to smell,compared with other mammals.

[8] The US Army’s new initiative to use elephants as bomb detectors raises the usual questions about the ethics of employing animals in dangerous work, particularly in current or former conflict zones. That, however, may not be a problem for long. So impressive is the elphantine sense of smell that the aforementioned US military researchers are actually seeking to replicate its mechanisms in bomb detecting technology,USA Todayreports. Army engineers are reportedly attempting to design “a sensor based on an elephant trunk, which puffs out air, stirring up an area, and then sucks in air to smell.”

[6]在安哥拉東南地區(qū)研究大象行為的生物學家邁克·蔡斯告訴《國家地理》：“我們在此地已有三年，但尚未發(fā)現(xiàn)有大象被地雷炸死或炸傷?！?/p>

[7]這一結果并不令人意外。相較其他哺乳動物，大象嗅覺基因發(fā)達，對于氣味的感知在動物王國首屈一指。《基因組研究》2014年發(fā)表的一項研究稱，大象的嗅覺基因數(shù)目是狗的兩倍，是人類的六倍；它們擁有體積龐大的嗅球；同時，它們大腦中負責嗅覺的區(qū)域遠大于哺乳動物的平均水平。

[8]美軍訓練大象嗅探炸彈的新舉動引發(fā)由來已久的倫理討論，即是否應該使用動物在沖突地區(qū)或曾爆發(fā)沖突地區(qū)進行危險作業(yè)。但這一問題或許很快就會得以解決：《今日美國》報道，大象嗅探能力驚人，美國軍方研究人員正致力于模擬大象嗅覺機制，將其用于改進爆炸物探測技術。據(jù)稱，軍方工程師正基于象鼻構造設計“新型傳感器，該傳感器首先噴出空氣，攪動氣流，然后吸入空氣，完成嗅探”。

（譯者單位：中南大學）