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Having an Albatross around Your Boat

若有一只信天翁围着你的船

If you’ve ever been on a fishing boat, you’ve probably seen flocks of birds following in your wake, hoping to catch a snack. Now scientists say they can use those birds’ behavior to track illegal fishing boats.

如果你曾经在渔船上，可能会看到成群的鸟跟在你的后面，希望能获取零食吃。现在科学家说他们可以利用这些鸟的行为来追踪非法渔船。

Here’s how it works: Researchers attached data loggers to the backs of 169 albatrosses in the Southern and Indian oceans. The devices weighed only an ounce and a half, but they included a GPS—which enabled them to detect the presence and intensity¹ of radar² signals emanating³ from boats. That information was then transmitted by satellite, so the researchers could track the location of the birds—and thus the radar-emitting boats—in real time.

是这样运作的:研究人员在南部和印度洋的169只信天翁背上安装了数据记录器。这些设备只有一盎司半重，但包含一个GPS，能够探测到船只发出的雷达信号以及信号强度。这些信息随后通过卫星传送，这样研究人员就可以实时跟踪这些鸟类的位置，从而跟踪这些发出雷达信号的船只。

The scientists then cross-checked that data against the known locations of boats, gleaned⁴ from a system boats use to declare themselves, called the Automatic Identification System. And discrepancies⁵ appeared frequently.

然后，科学家们将这些数据与船只的已知位置进行了交叉核对，这些数据来自船只用于自我核查的系统，即自动识别系统。但有时经常出现差异。

More than a third of the times the birds’ loggers’ detected radar signals, and therefore a boat, no such boat appeared in the official log—meaning that the vehicles had likely switched off their Automatic Identification Systems—something the researchers say probably happens in illegal fishing operations.

超过三分之一的时候，这些鸟类的“记录员”探测到雷达信号，因此一艘船，如果并没有出现在官方的日志中——这意味着它们可能关闭了自动识别系统——研究人员说这会发生在非法捕鱼作业中。

The results are in the Proceedings⁶ of the National Academy of Sciences.

研究结果发表在《美国国家科学院院刊》上。

The work suggests birds could be an effective boat-monitoring tool—as long as illegal fishing operations don’t target the birds, that is. Fortunately, such a task would be difficult.

这项研究表明，只要非法捕鱼活动不针对鸟类，鸟类可能是一种有效的船只监控工具。幸运的是，这样的任务很困难。

“Around fishing vessels⁷, you can get hundreds of birds at any one time that are all flying around. So it’s not really possible to target a specific bird. And the birds with loggers on are not marked in any way. So it’s difficult for fishermen to pick out a specific bird.”

在渔船周围，你可以随时看到数百只鸟在飞来飞去。所以不太可能瞄准特定某只鸟。有记录仪的鸟也没有任何标记。所以渔民很难挑出一只特定的鸟。”

Study author Samantha Patrick, a marine⁸ biologist at the University of Liverpool.

研究作者萨曼莎·帕特里克是利物浦大学的海洋生物学家。

Patrick’s bigger concern is that albatrosses often get hooked on fishing lines. And though regulations have been established to protect against that happening—with success—illegal boats don’t necessarily comply. So scientists might be underestimating the risk posed to albatross populations. But this system could mean that those illegal boats may have a tougher time flying under the radar.

帕特里克更担心的是信天翁经常被鱼线钩住。尽管已经制定了相关法规来防止这种情况的发生——及时已经制定——非法船只不一定会遵守。因此，科学家可能低估了信天翁种群面临的风险。但是这个系统可能意味着那些非法船只在雷达的监视下可能会有一段艰难的时间。