VOA常速英语2017--鳄雀鳝重返北美水系（在线收听）

Alligator gar are the second largest freshwater fish in North America. Later it disappeared from the state's waterways in the 1990s.

鳄雀鳝是北美第二大淡水鱼。后来，也就是20世纪90年代的时候，水域中就再没发现过这种鱼。

We want to restore the ecosystem because it is important to have top predators to balance the species below them in order to keep check on some more abundant species.

我们想修复这里的生态系统，因为很重要的一点是，顶端的捕食者要捕食他们下面的物种，这样才能控制住一些物种的数量，不会过盛。

Fisheries biologist Randy Sauer says, Beyond that, alligator gar make for some big game fishing. The diamond-scaled animals, which can breathe both air and water, can grow up to 2.7 meters and weigh more than 136 kilograms. In fact, their large size is what did them in originally in the state.

渔业生物学家兰迪(Randy Sauer)表示，除了这些原因之外，鳄雀鳝也促成了一些捕鱼活动。这种巨型动物可以呼吸空气和水分，能长到2.7米长，136千克重。事实上，它们庞大的体型正是造就他们在美国初始境地的原因。

It was pretty much extirpated out of its range because of misconceptions about it eating sport fish, he said. People would target it and put bounties on it.

曾几何时，鳄雀鳝几乎遭到捕杀灭绝，因为人们误以为它会娱乐用鱼为食。人们会以捕猎鳄雀鳝为目标，并对此悬赏。

The alligator gar is an opportunistic eater, meaning it will eat whatever it encounters — from an occasional turtle or small duck to invasive species such as Asian and silver carp. Sauer hopes the re-introduction program will help the state's efforts to control the carp.

鳄雀鳝是一种积极的捕食者，也就是说，它遇到什么就吃什么——无论是偶然邂逅的乌龟、小鸭子，还是具有进攻性的物种（比如亚洲鲤鱼和白鲢）。兰迪希望，本次引入鳄雀鳝的项目能帮助美国控制亚洲鲤鱼和白鲢。

Because gar can live up to 60 years, this program is going to take decades to fully expand.

由于鳄雀鳝寿命可达60年，因此这个项目要完全展开将需要数十年。

The female alligator gar does not sexually mature until 11 years, and the male not till 6 or 7 years, so at the outset of this project we're probably going to stock more heavily than 10 or 20 years down the road when hopefully these fish will find each other and start doing the job on their own.

雌性鳄雀鳝到11岁时才具备交配能力，而雄性鳄雀鳝也要到六七岁的时候才有交配能力。所以，现在这个项目刚开始，我们很可能要做好等10年甚至20年的准备，才能看到雄雌鳄雀鳝发现彼此，并进行自发交配。

To date, 7,000 alligator gar have been fitted with transponder tags so that they can be tracked and then released into Illinois waterways. As it rains and floods, biologists expect some of the fish to follow the rivers all the way down to the Louisiana and Texas.

目前为止，已有7000只鳄雀鳝被装载了应答器标志，这样就能追踪他们的行踪，放他们进伊利诺斯州的各大水路中。随着雨季和洪水的来临，生物学家预测，一些鳄雀鳝会沿着水路一路下游到路易斯安那州和德克萨斯州。