0
0Cute, furry and key to the ecosystem: can sea otters save the US west coast?
可爱、毛绒绒而且对于生态系统很关键：海獭能拯救美国西海岸吗？
Campaign seeks to restore seas otters to northern California and Oregon: ‘They are really important to coastal ecosystems’
生物多样性中心发起运动，旨在恢复从北加利福尼亚到俄勒冈州的海獭，并表示：“他们对于海岸带生态系统的确很重要”
Before the fur trade drove them to near extinction, sea otters once roamed the waters of North America from Alaska to Baja California. Now a non-profit conservation group wants to see them brought back, and say (says) the otters could help restore the region’s crucial but decimated kelp forests.
在毛皮贸易使海獭将近灭绝之前，它们曾经遍布于从阿拉斯加到下加利福尼亚的北美海域。现在有一支非营利自然保护团队想要海獭重新回到这里，并表示它们可以帮助恢复该地区极为重要但是大量毁灭的海藻林。
The Center for Biological Diversity has petitioned the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to reintroduce the furry mammals to a large swath of the west coast stretching from northern California to Oregon, pointing to the vital role otters play in the coastal ecosystem. A small population of southern sea otters lives on California’s central coast, where the Monterey Bay Aquarium regularly documents their adventures, but the threatened animal occupies just 13% of its historic range.
生物多样性中心向美国鱼类和野生生物管理局请愿，要求将海獭重新引入到加利福尼亚到俄勒冈州的大片西海岸水域，并指出了海獭在海岸带生态系统中至关重要的角色。加州中海岸上有少数的南海獭，蒙特雷湾水族馆在此定期记录它们的活动轨迹，但是该受威胁物种的活动区域仅占其历史活动范围的13%。
“There’s this big gap between the San Francisco Bay Area through Oregon where there are no sea otters,” said Emily Jeffers, an attorney in the oceans program at the Center for Biological Diversity. “They are really important to coastal ecosystems but they are just missing from a huge chunk of our coastline.”
“旧金山湾区到俄勒冈州没有海獭，这是一个巨大的缺口，”生物多样性中心海洋项目的律师艾米丽·杰弗斯表示。“它们对于海岸带生态系统很重要，但是大片海岸线上并没有它们的身影。”
The animals help keep sea urchin populations in check, which is vital to protect kelp forests – in northern California, 95% of kelp forests have disappeared due to urchin barrens. Reintroduction of otters is necessary to bring the animals back to their historic US range, recover the threatened southern sea otter and restore important coastal ecosystems including kelp forests and seagrass beds, the Center for Biological Diversity wrote in its letter to the federal government.
海獭能够制约海胆种群数目，这对于保护海藻林至关重要，在北加利福尼亚州有95%的海藻林因为海胆荒漠而消失。重新引入海獭十分关键，将有助于恢复其美国历史活动范围，恢复南海受威胁的海獭群体，并有助于恢复包括海藻林和海草床在内的海岸生态系统，生物多样性中心在给联邦政府的信中写道。
The center also asked the USFWS to assess the feasibility of reintroducing the otter from southern California into Baja California, Mexico.
该中心也请求美国鱼类和野生生物管理局评估将海獭从南加利福尼亚重新引入墨西哥下加利福尼亚州的可行性。
“Bringing the sea otter back to the broader west coast would be an unparalleled conservation success story,” Kristin Carden, a former senior scientist at the center, said in a statement. “Not only would the sea otters thrive, but they would also help restore vital kelp forest and seagrass ecosystems.”
“将海獭重新引入到广阔的西海岸将会是一个无与伦比的环境保护的胜利，”该中心前高级科学家克里斯汀·卡登在一项声明中表示。“不仅海獭可以绵延生息，而且它们也能帮助恢复关键的海藻林和海草生态系统。”
Last year the USFWS announced the results of a sea otter feasibility assessment in which the agency found that reintroducing the animal along the Pacific coast is biologically and socioeconomically feasible, and would “result in significant conservation benefits to the species … and to the nearshore marine ecosystem”.
去年，美国鱼类和野生生物管理局公布了海獭可行性评估的结果，认为将该动物重新引入太平洋海岸在生物和社会经济方面都具有可行性，并且将“给该物种以及近岸海洋生态系统带来意义深远的保护价值。”
