2009年高考英语湖北卷 - 阅读理解B

Three years ago, five parrots were set free in a wild place of Arizona, thousands of miles from the Channel Islands in Jersey. They had been looked after by zookeepers. No evolutionary strategies informed them how to behave in this new Landscape of mountainous pine forest unoccupied by their king for 50 years. To the researchers' surprise, they failed to make contact with a group of wild parrots imported from Mexico and set free at the same time. Within 24 hours the reintroducing ended in failure, and the poor birds were back in cages, on their way to the safety of the Arizona reintroduction programme.
三年前，五只鹦鹉在距泽西海峡群岛数千英里的亚利桑那州的一处荒野被放生。它们受到动物园管理员的照顾。进化策略没有告知它们如何在这片50年来无人居住的山地松林的新环境中生存。令研究人员惊讶的是，它们未能与一群从墨西哥进口，并同时放生的野生鹦鹉接触。24小时内，重新引入以失败告终，可怜的鸟儿们回到笼子里，前往亚利桑那州重新引入项目的安全地带。

Ever since then, the programme has enjoyed great success, mainly because the birds now being set free are Mexican birds illegally caught in the wild, confiscated on arrival north of the border, and raised by their parents in the safety of the programme. The experience shows how little we know about the behaviour and psychology of parrots, as Peter Bennett, a bird researcher, points out:"Reintroducing species of high intelligence like parrots is a lot more difficult. People like parrots, always treating them as nothing more than peers or valuable 'collectables'."
自那时以来，该方案取得了巨大成功，主要是因为目前被放生的鸟类是在野外非法捕获的墨西哥鸟类，在抵达边境以北时被没收，并由项目安全地带的父母们饲养。正如鸟类研究人员彼得·贝内特指出的那样，这段经历表明，我们对鹦鹉的行为和心理知之甚少：“像鹦鹉这样的高智力物种的再教育要困难得多。人们喜欢鹦鹉，总是把它们当作同龄人或有价值的“收藏品”。”

Now that many species of parrot are in immediate danger of dying out, biologists are working together to study the natural history and the behaviour of this family of birds. Last year was an important turning point: conservationists founded the World Parrot Trust, based at Hayle in Cornwall, to support research into both wild and caged birds.
现在许多鹦鹉物种面临灭绝的直接危险，生物学家正在共同研究这一鸟类家族的自然历史和行为。去年是一个重要的转折点：环保主义者在康沃尔郡的Hayle成立了世界鹦鹉信托基金会，以支持对野生和笼养鸟类的研究。

Research on parrots is vital for two reasons. Forest, as the Arizona programme showed, when reintroducing parrots to the wild, we need to be aware of what the birds must know if they are to survive in their natural home. We also need to learn more about the needs of parrots kept as pets, particularly as the Trust's campaign does not attempt to discourage the practice, but rather urges people who buy parrots as pets to choose birds raised by humans.
对鹦鹉的研究至关重要，有两个原因。正如亚利桑那州的计划所显示的那样，当把鹦鹉重新引入野外时，我们需要知道鸟类必须知道什么，才能在它们的天然家园中生存。我们还需要更多地了解鹦鹉作为宠物饲养的需求，特别是因为信托基金会的活动并不试图阻止这种做法，而是敦促购买鹦鹉为宠物的人选择人类饲养的鸟。