Conservation保護
How to prepare
poached
eggs
對付偷蛋人
A tracking device may help stop the robbery of turtles‘ nests
一種追蹤裝置或許可以阻止海龜巢穴被盜
Turtles have a problem。They are delicious。 And so are their eggs
烏龜們有一個煩惱：自己太美味，下的蛋也美味。
That has led to heavy hunting in the past
。
這使得它們在過去遭受了大肆捕殺。
These days，though， the seven species of
marine turtle
are protected in most countries
目前，雖然有七種海龜已在大多國家的保護之下。
lf turtle soup is legally on the menu its source will be a freshwater species such as the North American snapping turtle.
但只要選單上的龜湯合法，那麼淡水龜種，比如北美的齧龜，就將成為原料來源。
But that does not stop the eggs of marine turtles being poached
而這並未阻止海龜蛋繼續被盜。
Which they are， frequently。
被盜事件依舊頻發。
Such poaching
is often ignored by local bobbies.
這種偷獵行為常被當地警察忽視。
But even if the authorities
do wish to clamp down on it
，arresting the
small-fry
who dig the eggs up on beaches where turtles nest will not
deal with the problem.
但是，即使當局真的想要強行壓制，即便抓捕了那些在海龜築巢的海灘上挖蛋的“小人物”也於事無補。
That requires finding the trade’s organisers。And this can be hard。
他們需要找出幕後黑手（交易組織者），但這十分困難。
To assist the process Kim WilliamsGuillen of Paso Pacifico,an American conservation charity,and Helen Pheasey of the University of Kent,in Britain, have come up with a nifty gadget.
為了協助這一行動的進行，美國保護慈善組織帕索·太平洋地區的金·威廉斯吉倫和英國肯特大學的海倫·菲西發明了一個精巧的裝置。
lt is a
globalpositioning-system transmitter
enclosed in a plastic shell made by 3D printing。
即一種安裝在由3D打印製作的塑膠蛋殼內的全球定位系統發射機。
The result looks
like a turtle‘s egg and weighs about the same。外形、重量均與海龜蛋無差。
Dug up and carried away by poachers，it can lead the police to those poachers’
bases of operation.
一旦這種裝置被偷蛋者挖出來並帶走，整察便可追蹤至偷蛋者的大本營。
As they report this week in Current Biology， Dr Williams-Guillen and Dr Pheasey have now tested their invention in Costa Rica，a place where turtle-egg poaching is
rife
。
正如本週他們在《當代生物學》上報道的那樣，金·威廉斯吉倫博士和菲西博士已經在哥斯大黎加（海龜蛋被盜盛行之地）對該裝置進行了測試。
They set the printer to mimic the eggs of two species,the green and the olive ridley, which frequent that country's coast-lines, and placed a decoy egg into each of 101 turtle nests on four beaches where poaching is a problem.
他們用印表機模擬了兩種海龜蛋——綠蟎龜和橄欖綠蟎龜，這兩種海龜經常出沒於該國的海岸線上。他們在存在偷獵問題的四個海灘上的101個海龜巢穴中各放了一枚假蛋。
The decoys were riqged to remain dormant until their shells were exposed to the air.
誘餌蛋被設定成休眠模式，直到蛋殼暴露於空氣之中將其觸發。
At that moment-
presumed to signal
the arrival of poachers-the “egg”
in question
starts
broadcasting
its location once an hour。
在那一刻——被認為是偷獵者到來的訊號——這隻“蛋”便開始每小時播報一次自己的位置。
in all， 25 of the decoys were poached。 They told different stories。
被偷的“假蛋”共25枚，它們分別訴說了不同的故事。
Some travelled just a few kilometres， with one
ending up at
a bar 2km away from the nest it was taken from， where its signal abruptly ended。
有的僅被帶離幾公里之外，還有一枚在距離被偷巢穴2公里的一家酒吧內突然銷聲匿跡。
Others went
quite a distance
其它的則被帶到了較遠的地區。
One, for example,was carried 137km inland,to a supermarket loading bay, before transmitting its final signal from a residential property nearby.
比如其中一枚“假蛋”被帶到了137公里外的內陸，到了一家超市的裝貨間，最後在超市附近的一個小區裡發出了最後的訊號。
The most curious tale,
though，was told by a decoy that ended up in Cariari，a town 43km from the beach where it had been deployed。
其中最離奇的一段故事來自一枚最後被帶到了卡里阿里（Cariari）的“假蛋”，卡里阿里是一處距離被盜巢穴43公里的小鎮。
To their surprise， the researchers
were sent photographs of
this particular device by members of a local turtle-monitoring project。
令研究人員驚訝的是，他們從當地的海龜監測專案成員那裡收到了該特殊裝置的照片。
This group had been contacted by the egg‘s purchaser， who was happy to volunteer where he had bought it-indicating either that he did not understand that the trade was illegal， or that he didn’t care。
該海龜蛋買家已經聯絡了小組，他很樂意告訴大家自己在哪裡買的蛋，這表明他不知道這種交易是非法的，或者說他不在乎。
To make sure that they, themselves,were not harming what they were intending to protect,the researchers monitored all of the decoy-laden nests which had survived the attentions of poachers and compared these nests' outputs of hatchlings with those of 44 other surviving nests that had no decoy in them.
為了確保他們沒有傷及他們自己想要保護的物件，研究人員檢測了所有未引起偷蛋者注意的裝有“假蛋”的巢穴，並將這些巢穴內孵化的小烏龜和其它44個裡面沒有“假蛋”的未遭偷盜的巢穴內孵出的小烏龜進行了對比。
Both sorts of nest had the same
hatching rates,
suggesting that adding a decoy did
not affect the development of
the eggs it was hidden among。
結果顯示這兩種巢穴內的孵化率是一樣的。這說明把“假蛋”混著放在真蛋裡並未影響真蛋的發育。
Given the success of
their project，Dr Williams-Guillen and Dr Pheasey propose that the idea should be used more widely for turtles。
鑑於專案的成功，金·威廉斯吉倫博士和菲西博士提議將該想法廣泛應用於幫助烏龜。
They also suggest that similar decoys might help protect the eggs of other endangered reptiles-and birds-that are collected and traded illegally。
同時他們建議，類似“假蛋”或可用於幫助避免其他面臨威脅的爬行動物——及鳥類-一的蛋被收集和非法交易。
