科学美国人60秒:Road Noise Makes Birds' Lives Tougher

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.
我们几乎听不到自己的歌声，更不要说听到朋友的歌声了…..而且也听不到其他捕食者的声音。噪音几乎无处不在，特别是交通噪音。约达83%的美洲大陆的表面都处于一公里的公路范围之内。

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.
研究人员通过观察居住在嘈杂道路附近的动物，来评估公路噪音对动物的影响。但问题在于，噪音公路，它既有噪音，也是公路，很难将两者分开而论。

"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."
因此，我们想了一个办法将噪音和公路上的其他因素相分离。为了达到此目的，我们还在一片没有道路的森林里使用了扬声器。

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·麦克卢尔是来自博伊西州立大学和The Peregrine Fund基金会的一名生物学家。他和团队，在爱达荷州鸟类冬天向南迁徙时频繁停留的地方修建了一个幻音公路。

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.
尽管噪音使许多鸟类远离了此地，但是仍有一些鸟类愿意停留。但是它们因体重不足而无法继续自己的迁徙之旅。

"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."
“它们一方面要增肥，同时还要避免成为其他动物口中的猎物。这两者是矛盾的。因为，为了吃食，它们必须要低头向下看，这也就意味着，它们无法注意到捕食者。”

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.
当环境太嘈杂的时候，鸟类就不能听到同伴的警告。所以，它们就需要浪费时间在寻找捕食者而不是觅食上。该研究结果发表在《保护动物》杂志上。

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.
人们认为，截止到2050年，新修建的道路足以绕地球600多圈。但是对于噪音问题，有一个简单的解决办法。

"Lowering speed limits does a lot."
降低限速能起大作用。

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.
所以，下次你再开车行驶于大自然中时，只需要稍稍减慢一些。这样做既保证了自身安全，也能保证野生动物们生活稳定。 如此你也能够更长久的欣赏大自然。