如果没有乌龟，世界会变成什么样子？

如果没有乌龟，世界会变成什么样子？嗯，龟兔赛跑这个故事就没有了，龙王的龟丞相也没有了，孩子们少了一种宠物......

NHMLA

What If There Were No More Turtles?

A new study looks at the decline of a longevity icon.

BY LIZ LANGLEY

So what would a world without turtles look like?

如果没有乌龟，世界会变成什么样？

First, let’s talk first about what it would smell like.

 首先，我们来讨论下它会闻起来什么样。

“Turtles are great scavengers, the garbage patrol of an area,” eating up dead fish from lakes and rivers, Gibbons says.“They do no harm and they do a lot of good.”

乌龟是很棒的腐食性动物，是它所生活地区的垃圾巡逻队，吃河流和湖泊里面的死鱼，不仅没有危害反而做出很多有益的事情。

Turtles also provide homes for a lot of critters. Burrows dug by gopher tortoises shelter over 350 species, including burrowing owls, rabbits, and bobcats.

乌龟也为许多小动物提供住所。穴居沙龟挖的地洞可以为包括猫头鹰、兔子和山猫在内的350多种生物提供居所。

Turtles are even bio-engineers, keeping the landscape healthy and varied by dispersing seeds. A box turtle that eats some strawberries and then walks half a mile and defecates the seeds is adding to the landscape. They also rotate including the sand on the sea floor, and redistributing energy from one ecosystem to another. Nesting sea turtles leave about 75 percent of their energy on land in the form of eggs and hatchlings before they return to sea.

乌龟甚至是生物工程师，通过散布种子来保持生态系统的健康和多样性。一只箱龟吃了一些草莓，然后走了半英里，通过排便散布种子。它们还会在有沙子的海床上旋转，并将能量从一个生态系统重新分配到另一个生态系统。筑巢的海龟在返回大海之前，将75%的能量以卵和孵化的形式留在陆地上。

A Poorer World

So, turtles do a lot for the world’s ecology. What else would we lose?

因此，乌龟为生态系统做了诸多贡献。除此之外，我们还会失去什么？

An absence of turtles would be a “cultural, psychological loss,” to many societies, Gibbons says. We revere their traits of persistence and serenity. They’re the one reptile that just about everyone likes.

Gibbons说到：“缺少乌龟对许多社会来说是“文化、心理上的损失”。我们尊重它们的坚持不懈和宁静。它们是几乎每个人都喜欢的爬行动物。”

“I’ve never heard anyone say “Gosh, I hope a turtle doesn’t get into my house,” he says.

他说：“我从来没听人说‘天哪，我希望乌龟不要进我的房子。’”

“They’re a paragon of survival, and it would be terrible if they’ve come through 200 million years and then in the last few centuries most are eliminated,” he says. “Not a very good legacy for us.”

他说：“它们是生存的典范，如果它们经历了2亿年，然后在过去的几个世纪里被消灭，那将是件可怕的事情。”“这对我们来说不是什么好事。”

One thing people can do, Lovich says, is not take wild turtles home. Get one at a rescue center where plenty of people relinquish those they no longer want as pets, a better plan than ‘setting them free,’ in the wild, where they don’t survive. “Keep wild turtles wild,” Lovich says, and leave them where they are—for their sake and ours.

Lovich说，人们能做的一件事就是不要把野生乌龟带回家。你可以在救援中心找一只乌龟带回去，有很多人把他们不想要的宠物放在救援中心，这是一个比“放生”更好的计划，这些宠物在野外无法生存。“让野生乌龟保持野生状态，”Lovich说，为了它们和我们的利益，把它们留在原地。

Finally, the world would just be less rich without these funny and unique animals. Gibbons likens it to losing another kind of happiness. “If you took away all the Ferris wheels in amusement parks, you’d still have amusement parks,” he says. “But they’d be a little less exciting, wouldn’t they?”

最后，如果没有这些有趣而独特的动物，世界就不会那么丰富多彩了。Gibbons把它比作失去另一种幸福。他说：“如果你把游乐场里所有的摩天轮都拿走，那还是会有游乐场的，但却不会那么令人激动了，不是吗？“

原文链接：https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/09/turtles-endangered-biodiversity-ecology-tortoise-terrapin-animals/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=social::src=twitter::cmp=editorial::add=tw20190523env-resurfworldwithoutturtles::rid=&sf213200160=1