2017考研趣味閱讀：柬埔寨用老鼠嗅覺(jué)掃雷

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It's been a busy morning for Cletus, Meynard, Victoria and others of their furry band. Tiny noses and long whiskers twitching, they've scurried and sniffed their way across 775 square meters of fields to eliminate a scourge that has killed thousands of Cambodians: land mines.

克萊圖斯、邁納爾德、維多利亞等“鼠英雄”已經(jīng)忙碌一早上了。它們的小鼻子使勁嗅著，長(zhǎng)胡須隨之抽動(dòng)，一路疾掃了柬埔寨方圓775平方米的土地，目的是為鏟除當(dāng)?shù)匾褗Z走成千上萬(wàn)人性命的一大禍害——地雷。

Meet the Hero Rats: intelligent, surprisingly adorable creatures with some of the most sensitive noses in the animal kingdom. Sent from Africa, where they successfully cleared minefields in Mozambique and Angola, they began the same task in northwestern Cambodia early this month and have already scored tangible results.

何謂“鼠英雄”?答案便是這些“聰明可愛(ài)、嗅覺(jué)極其靈敏的老鼠”。這些老鼠生長(zhǎng)于非洲，曾成功清除了莫桑比克以及安哥拉的雷區(qū)。本月初，它們被送往柬埔寨西北部，開(kāi)始了掃雷任務(wù)，并且目前已是戰(zhàn)果累累。

Two hectares have been declared mine-free around this village where more than 15 people have been killed or wounded by the explosives, forcing some to abandon their homes and rice fields and seek jobs elsewhere.

目前該村莊附近兩公頃的區(qū)域內(nèi)都沒(méi)有了地雷隱患。而此前已有超過(guò)15人因炸彈喪生或受傷，一些村民不得不撇下自己的房屋和田地，去別處謀工作。

One villager, Khun Mao, says the rats have been sniffing for suspected mines in a rice field he had been afraid to cultivate for years. He says that while it is too soon to say whether the rodents can remove every mine, "To me, these rats are wonderful."

村民庫(kù)恩·毛稱(chēng)，多年來(lái)他一直不敢耕種的那片田地已經(jīng)有地雷探測(cè)隊(duì)的“鼠英雄”去聞過(guò)了。他還說(shuō)，盡管現(xiàn)在就肯定老鼠能排除所有地雷還為時(shí)過(guò)早，“但對(duì)我來(lái)說(shuō)，這些老鼠真的非常了不起。”

"The villagers have started to get excited about farming their land again. You can see the light in their faces," says Paul McCarthy, Cambodia program manager for the Belgian nonprofit organization APOPO, or Anti-Personnel Land Mines Detection Product in English.

APOPO，即“防殺傷掃雷組織”，是比利時(shí)一家非營(yíng)利機(jī)構(gòu)。其柬埔寨項(xiàng)目經(jīng)理保羅·麥卡錫表示：“村民們又重新燃起了對(duì)耕種的熱情，一個(gè)個(gè)臉上洋溢著喜悅。”

On a recent morning, the African giant pouched rats were working two suspected, taped-off minefields. Each rodent wore a harness connected to a rope strung out in a straight line between two handlers standing about 5 meters apart and outside the danger zone. The rodents then darted from one handler to the other, constantly sniffing the ground and only taking time out to scrub their bodies with tiny front paws or to answer nature's call. The handlers moved a step or two down the field to repeat the process, and a second rat was later sent over the same terrain to double check.

近日的某個(gè)清晨，這些非洲巨囊鼠開(kāi)始搜尋兩個(gè)存在安全隱患的雷區(qū)。兩名訓(xùn)導(dǎo)員站在危險(xiǎn)區(qū)外，兩人之間相距約5米，用一條筆直的繩子連著。每只老鼠身上都戴著套索，套索與訓(xùn)導(dǎo)員手中的繩子相連。老鼠們?cè)趦擅��?xùn)導(dǎo)員之間的直線區(qū)域來(lái)回跑動(dòng)，除了偶爾用細(xì)小的前爪擦拭身體，或者上上廁所外，它們會(huì)一路不停地嗅著地面。訓(xùn)導(dǎo)員向雷區(qū)下方移動(dòng)，老鼠們又開(kāi)始重復(fù)之前的工作。一只老鼠搜完后，會(huì)有第二只鼠復(fù)查一遍。

Two-year-old Victoria proved particularly swift — "very active," one team member calls her.

一只名為“維多利亞”的兩歲老鼠表現(xiàn)得尤為敏捷——有隊(duì)員說(shuō)她“非常活潑”。

At the second field, Merry and Meynard were completing three hours of effort as a midday sun beat down on the parched earth. The duo had earlier nosed in on an explosive, halting just above it and scratching the ground — the learned response when a rodent detects TNT inside a land mine. A deminer with a detector followed and the mine was dug up and detonated

在另一個(gè)雷區(qū)，午時(shí)的太陽(yáng)烘烤著炙熱的大地，瑪麗和邁納爾德都連續(xù)搜了近三個(gè)小時(shí)了。它們兩個(gè)早先曾嗅到了一顆炸彈：在炸彈正上方停下來(lái)，狂撓地面。這是有經(jīng)驗(yàn)的鼠在探測(cè)到地雷中的炸藥成分后做出的常見(jiàn)反應(yīng)。接下來(lái)就會(huì)有負(fù)責(zé)排雷的人帶著探測(cè)器過(guò)來(lái)，把雷挖出并銷(xiāo)毀。

Unlike standard mine detectors, the super-sniffers pick up only TNT and not other metal objects. And unlike wage-earning humans, the rats work for peanuts — and their other favorite, bananas.

不同于正規(guī)地雷探測(cè)儀，超級(jí)“鼠英雄”只能嗅出地雷中的三硝基甲苯成分，無(wú)法探測(cè)出其他金屬物件。此外，不同于需要賺錢(qián)養(yǎng)家的人類(lèi)，巨鼠們有花生喂食就夠了，當(dāng)然香蕉它們也很喜歡。

Theap Bunthourn, operations coordinator for the 34-member team, cited other advantages of using rats: They are cheaper to acquire and train than mine-sniffing dogs and easier to transport.

這個(gè)探測(cè)組有34名工作人員。小組的行動(dòng)協(xié)調(diào)員西伯·本圖龍表示，用鼠探雷還有其他好處：與狗相比，老鼠的購(gòu)買(mǎi)和訓(xùn)練費(fèi)用更低，運(yùn)輸起來(lái)也更容易。