作者：dlzxlsx 发表日期：2011-1-4 10:26:00
4,000 Dead Birds Drop From the Sky
天降4000只死鸟
时代广场有球从天而降，在北卡罗来纳州伯拉斯通（Brasstown），天则有掉负鼠（两者都是当地迎新年的活动）。位于阿肯色州首府小岩城（Little Rock）东北方向35英里外的小镇毕比（Beebe）在新年前夕可经历了最不寻常的一幕，人们议论纷纷。
Times Square had the ball drop, and Brasstown, N.C., had its descending possum. But no place had a New Year’s Eve as unusual, or freakishly disturbing, as Beebe, Ark.
上周五晚上10时，小镇天空有几千只美洲红翼鸫（red-winged blackbirds）从天而降。屋顶、道路、前庭、后院到处都是死鸟，黑压压的一片，在场所有的人都吓坏了。
About 10 p.m. Friday, thousands of red-winged blackbirds began falling out of the sky over this town about 35 miles northeast of Little Rock. They landed on roofs, roads, front lawns and backyards, turning the ground nearly black and scaring anyone who happened to be outside.
“一只鸟差点就击中我最好朋友的头了。” Christy Stephens说，当时他正在参加新年聚会。“之后我们马上跑进了屋子。”
“One of them almost hit my best friend in the head,” said Christy Stephens, who was standing outside among the smoking crowd at a New Year’s Eve party. “We went inside after that.”
Keith Stephens是一名阿肯色州渔猎委员会(Game and Fish Commission)的一名工作人员。他说原因尚不清楚。在毕比发现了4000多只死鸟，有65个样本分别已经送往阿肯色州和威斯康星州的实验室，他说。
The cause is still being determined, said Keith Stephens, a spokesman for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Of the more than 4,000 birds that fell on Beebe, 65 samples have been sent to labs, one in Arkansas, the other in Wisconsin. Some results may be available as soon as Monday, Mr. Stephens said.
目前为止，官方认为，由于当地燃放焰火，鸟可能死于惊吓，也可能是闪电所致。但Stephens承认，原因不能确定。
For now, state officials are speculating that the birds may have died as a result of stress, startled by fireworks in the area, or perhaps by lightning. But, Mr. Stephens acknowledged that the cause may never be known.
他说，在此类事件中，据他所知，这次是数量最多的一次。
It is, he said, the biggest case like this that he is aware of.
他说：“19年前，有一次野鸭死亡事件，但当时只有几十只。”
“About 19 years ago, we had some ducks,” he said, “but that was only a couple of dozen.”
一些当地居民已经用袋子把死鸟装好，放在路边。该镇联系了一家环境清洁公司，到星期一下午，死鸟基本清理完毕。市议员Tracy Lightfoot说，不断还有死鸟被发现，这次鸟死亡数量很大。
The town contacted an environmental cleanup firm, which by Monday afternoon had picked up nearly all of the bird carcasses, some of which had been bagged and left by residents at the end of driveways. A few calls were still coming in, said Tracy Lightfoot, who sits on the City Council, but that was no surprise given how many birds had dropped out of the sky.
“看起来就象下鸟雨。”他说，不过拒绝对死因做出推测。“人们议论纷纷。我也不知道，一点头绪都没有。”
“It just looked as if it had rained birds,” he said, declining to speculate on the reason. “There’s lots of theories running around. I have no idea. I just don’t have a clue.”
有一点可以肯定：鸟雨与几天前在该州西部发生的83000条死鱼事件没有关系。那次死鱼事件是人们记忆中最严重的死鱼事件。当时钓鱼爱好者发现了死鱼，并向州渔猎委员会报告。死鱼漂浮延绵20英里，州渔猎委员会新年除夕整夜都要在计算清点死鱼的数量。
One thing is almost certain: the bird drop is not related to the 83,000 fish that died a few days earlier in the western part of the state, the biggest fish kill in Arkansas that anyone can remember. They were spotted by anglers last week and reported to the Game and Fish Commission, which spent New Year’s Eve measuring and counting dead fish that had spread out for nearly 20 miles.
当时，死的几乎都要是小石首鱼(Drum fish)。委员会水产部主任Mark Oliver说，可能是疾病致死。他说，鱼儿死亡并非罕见，特别是在冬季，鱼群相对生活得更集中。但他没有提及之前任何一次死鱼数量规模。
In that case, the victims were almost all drum, and almost all younger ones. That suggests the culprit was disease, said Mark Oliver, the commission’s chief of fisheries. He said that fish kills were not uncommon, especially in winter when fish are packed more closely, but he did not recall one of this size.
官方已经把一些濒临死亡的鱼送到位于Pine Bluf的阿肯色大学鱼类疾病实验室。检测结果要几个星期之后才能出来。
State officials have sent samples of dying, but not yet dead, fish to the fish disease lab at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, which could take a couple of weeks to reach conclusions.
死鱼与死鸟的相关性几乎为零（这两起事件与一年前该州中部发生的连续小地震也无关），因为一个在该州西部的河里，另一个是在东北部的天上。
The likelihood of a connection between dead fish in a river on one side of the state and dead birds from the sky in another is pretty much nil (nor is there any connection between these events and the yearlong swarm of mini-earthquakes in the center of the state).
但相当蹊跷。
But it is all rather odd.
市议员Becky Short说，鸟的死因，除了焰火解释外，有人开玩笑地说是世界末日到了或是UFO。
Becky Short, who also sits on the City Council, said that in addition to the controversial fireworks theory, people have already begun joking about the biblical end times and U.F.O.’s.
她的解释相当简单：看起来象一种自然现象。
Her conclusion was simpler.
“Looks like some sort of phenomenon happened,” she said. |
发表于 2011-1-4 13:28:46
发表于 2011-1-4 16:42:55
发表于 2011-1-4 22:42:14
