新托福TPO4閱讀原文(一)Deer Populations of the Puget Sound及譯文.docx

新托福TPO4閱讀原文(一):Deer Populations of the Puget SoundTPO-4-1：Deer Populations of the Puget SoundTwo species of deer have been prevalent in the Puget Sound area of Washington State in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The black-tailed deer, a lowland, west-side cousin of the mule deer of eastern Washington, is now the most common. The other species, the Columbian white-tailed deer, in earlier times was common in the open prairie country; it is now restricted to the low, marshy islands and flood plains along the lower Columbia River.Nearly any kind of plant of the forest understory can be part of a deers diet. Where the forest inhibits the growth of grass and other meadow plants, the black-tailed deer browses on huckleberry, salal, dogwood, and almost any other shrub or herb. But this is fair-weather feeding. What keeps the black-tailed deer alive in the harsher seasons of plant decay and dormancy? One compensation for not hibernating is the built-in urge to migrate. Deer may move from high-elevation browse areas in summer down to the lowland areas in late fall. Even with snow on the ground, the high bushy understory is exposed; also snow and wind bring down leafy branches of cedar, hemlock, red alder, and other arboreal fodder.The numbers of deer have fluctuated markedly since the entry of Europeans into Puget Sound country. The early explorers and settlers told of abundant deer in the early 1800s and yet almost in the same breath bemoaned the lack of this succulent game animal. Famous explorers of the north American frontier, Lewis and Clark arrived at the mouth of the Columbia River on November 14, 1805, in nearly starved circumstances. They had experienced great difficulty finding game west of the Rockies and not until the second of December did they kill their first elk. To keep 40 people alive that winter, they consumed approximately 150 elk and 20 deer. And when game moved out of the lowlands in early spring, the expedition decided to return east rather than face possible starvation. Later on in the early years of the nineteenth century, when Fort Vancouver became the headquarters of the Hudsons Bay Company, deer populations continued to fluctuate. David Douglas, Scottish botanical explorer of the 1830s, found a disturbing change in the animal life around the fort during the period between his first visit in 1825 and his final contact with the fort in 1832. A recent Douglas biographer states: The deer which once picturesquely dotted the meadows around the fort were gone in 1832, hunted to extermination in order to protect the crops.Reduction in numbers of game should have boded ill for their survival in later times. A worsening of the plight of deer was to be expected as settlers encroached on the land, logging, burning, and clearing, eventually replacing a wilderness landscape with roads, cities, towns, and factories. No doubt the numbers of deer declined still further. Recall the fate of the Columbian white-tailed deer, now in a protected status. But for the black-tailed deer, human pressure has had just the opposite effect. Wildlife zoologist Helmut Buechner(1953), in reviewing the nature of biotic changes in Washington through recorded time, says that since the early 1940s, the state has had more deer than at any other time in its history, the winter population fluctuating around approximately 320,000 deer (mule and black-tailed deer), which will yield about 65,000 of either sex and any age annually for an indefinite period.The causes of this population rebound are consequences of other human actions. First, the major predators of deerwolves, cougar, and lynxhave been greatly reduced in numbers. Second, conservation has been insured by limiting times for and types of hunting. But the most profound reason for the restoration of high population numbers has been the fate of the forests. Great tracts of lowland country deforested by logging, fire, or both have become ideal feeding grounds of deer. In addition to finding an increase of suitable browse, like huckleberry and vine maple, Arthur Einarsen, longtime game biologist in the Pacific Northwest, found quality of browse in the open areas to be substantially more nutritive. The protein content of shade-grown vegetation, for example, was much lower than that for plants grown in clearings.譯文：TPO-4-1 普吉特海灣的鹿群在太平洋西北區(qū)的美國華盛頓州，有兩種鹿在普吉特海灣非常普遍。最常見的黑尾鹿是華盛頓東部雜交鹿在西部的表親，它們生活在低地。另一種哥倫比亞白尾鹿，從前在開闊的草原上很常見，而現(xiàn)在只能在低矮的沼澤島嶼地帶和哥倫比亞河下游的河灘地區(qū)才能看到它們。森林里，幾乎任何植物都是鹿的食物。在森林抑制草和其它草甸植物生長的地方，黑尾鹿可以吃越橘、北美白珠樹、山茱萸和其他幾乎所有灌木和草;但這些只能在好天氣里才能吃得到;在植物衰敗、隱匿的嚴(yán)寒季節(jié)，黑尾鹿們是如何過冬的呢?避免冬眠的一種方法就是天生的遷徙習(xí)性。它們會(huì)在夏天遷徙到高海拔覓食區(qū)，直到秋天結(jié)束再回到低地。即便地面還有殘雪，高的灌木也會(huì)露出來;風(fēng)雪天氣會(huì)把雪松、鐵衫、紅榿木和其它喬木多葉的樹枝帶下來。自從歐洲人進(jìn)入了普吉特海灣，鹿群的數(shù)量發(fā)生了顯著的變化。早期的探險(xiǎn)家和殖民者說起在19世紀(jì)早期那兒有大量的鹿群，與此同時(shí)惋惜現(xiàn)在這種誘人動(dòng)物的稀少。著名的北美探險(xiǎn)先驅(qū)者劉易斯和克拉克在落基山西部經(jīng)歷種種困難，并且直到第二年12月他們才殺死了第一只麋鹿。為了讓40人在冬天里存活，他們消耗了150只麋鹿和20只小鹿。當(dāng)獵物在早春時(shí)期遷徙出了低地，遠(yuǎn)征隊(duì)決定返回東部而不是去面對(duì)潛在的饑餓。此后在19世紀(jì)最初幾年里，溫哥華堡成為哈德遜灣公司的總部，鹿的數(shù)量持續(xù)波動(dòng)。19世紀(jì)30年代，蘇格蘭植物學(xué)探險(xiǎn)家大衛(wèi)道格拉斯發(fā)現(xiàn)了他在1825年第一次的探訪和1832年的最后接觸之間出現(xiàn)在溫哥華堡附近令人不安的變化。在道格拉斯近期的傳記中陳述到：在1832年曾經(jīng)如畫般點(diǎn)綴在溫哥華堡附近草地上的鹿群已經(jīng)消失了，為了保護(hù)農(nóng)作物獵殺致滅絕。鹿群數(shù)量的減少預(yù)示了它們今后生存的艱辛。當(dāng)殖民者入侵它們的領(lǐng)地時(shí)，人類在它們生活的土地上進(jìn)行采伐、焚燒，清除障礙，最終將公路、城市、城鎮(zhèn)和工廠代替了荒野風(fēng)景。毋庸置疑，鹿群的數(shù)量進(jìn)一步減少?；叵肫饋?，哥倫比亞白尾鹿的命運(yùn)，現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)處于被保護(hù)地位。而對(duì)黑尾鹿來說，人類的壓力反而產(chǎn)生了相反的效果。野生動(dòng)物學(xué)家赫爾穆特布希納(1953)通過已有記錄評(píng)論了華盛頓地區(qū)生物的自然變化，他說：“20世紀(jì)40年代早期，美國擁有比以往任何歷史時(shí)期都多的鹿群，鹿群冬季的數(shù)量在接近32萬只鹿(雜交和黑尾鹿)左右波動(dòng)，在此之后的每一年不同年齡段的公鹿和母鹿數(shù)量分別會(huì)增加至65 000只。這種鹿群數(shù)量