Whales 巨鲸

The concern throughout the world in 1988 for those three whales that were locked
in the Arctic ice was dramatic proof that whales, several species of which face
extinction, have become subjects of considerable sympathy.

1988年，3头巨鲸被封在北极圈的冰块之中使全世界深感关切。这件事戏剧性地证明鲸类——其中有几个品种正在濒临灭绝——已经获得了人类的同情和关怀。


These are the recorded voices of whales. These monstrous creatures have been
trumpeting their songs, one to another, in the world's oceans since the dawn of
time, while overhead, great empires and civilizations have come and gone. Now,
their time of decline has come. It began a long time ago.

这些巨大无比的动物从洪荒时代以来，就在世界各大洋里彼此对唱着自己的歌。在它们上面的世界里，各大帝国和人类的各种文明此盛彼衰，不断更迭。现在它们衰败的时间已经来临，很早以前就已开始了。


Four-thousand-year-old rock carvings show that the people who lived in what is
now Norway were probably the first to seek out and kill whales in the sea. By
around 890 AD, 3,000 years later, the practice had spread to the Basque people
of France and Spain, who hunted whales from boats in the Bay of Biscay. In the
centuries that followed, Whaling became an important industry in Denmark,
England, Germany, the Netherlands, and, finally, in what would become America.

4千年前的岩雕表明，住在现今挪威这个地方的人大概是最早在海上捕杀鲸鱼的人。3千年之后，到了公元890年时，这一做法已扩展到法国和西班牙的巴斯克族之中。他们乘船在比斯开湾捕鲸。在此后好几个世纪里，捕鲸成为丹麦、英国、德国、荷兰，最后也在后来成为美国的那些地方时一个重要的行业。


Whaling went into dramatic decline, beginning around 1900. Today, whales are
hunted commercially only by Norway, Iceland and Japan. The world's fascination
with them, however, is at an all-time high, because so few of them are left.
Given their tragic history.

从1900年前后开始，
捕鲸业戏剧性地衰退了。如今只有挪威、冰岛、日本还在进行商业性捕鲸。可是，现在全世界对鲸鱼的爱好都达到了高潮，因为剩下的鲸鱼已经很少。我们已经了解到了鲸鱼的悲惨历史。


Richard Ellis writes about whales, takes pictures of whales in the open sea, and
sketches whales stranded on the beach. He says it's a 20-year obsession that
began in the mid-1960s, when he designed a model of a great blue for the Museum
of Natural History in New York.

理查德·埃利斯写作有关鲸鱼的著述，摄制鲸鱼在辽阔的大海里的照片，还把被困在海滩上的鲸鱼画下来。他说他，的这一爱好已有20年历史，开始于60年代中期，那时他曾为纽约市的自然历史博物馆设计一条巨大的蓝鲸模型。


"As I began to do the research. I realized that nobody knew anything about
whales. And I couldn't really find any pictures of what they looked like: all I
could find was pictures of dead whales. And I became very excited at the
prospect of doing what seemed to be original research on something that was so
peculiar, which was the largest animal that has ever lived on earth. "

“当我开始进行研究工作时，我发现没有人了解鲸鱼。我找不到任何照片说明鲸鱼是什么样子的，只能找到死了的鲸鱼的照片。我想到自己将要进行一项看来是最原始的研究，研究一种非常特别的东西。也就是在地球上生存过的最大的动物，这一推测使我感到极为兴奋。”


So large, he discovered, that the largest

dinosaur weighed only half as much as the female blue whale. As he continued his
research he boarded scientific vessels. Dove with whales in the Pacific, and
even watched whales die at the hands of modern. explosive-tipped harpoons. His
sketches appeared in magazines and encyclopedias and at the center of what was
then the beginning of a movement to save the whales.

他发现鲸鱼大得很，以至最大的恐龙的体重也只及一条母蓝鲸的一半。随着研究工作的继续进行，他登上了科学考察船，同鲸鱼一起在太平洋里潜游，甚至还目睹鲸鱼被现代化的、叉尖带炸药的鱼又命中后死去。他的画刊登在杂志上和百科全书里，也悬挂在当时刚刚兴起的拯救鲸鱼运动的中心。


"I was one of those people who used to stand on street corners and ask for
people to sign petitions, which at that time were directed towards the Japanese
and the Soviets. Because in that period of time - late 60s, early 70s – the
Japanese and the Soviets were killing tens of thousands of sperm particularly in
the North Pacific. And we thought that getting the world's opinion on paper
would make them say, 'Oh look, all these people don't like what we are doing. We
will stop.' Well, of course, they didn't stop"

“我是那个时候常常站在街角征集人们在请愿书上签名的人之一，当时的请愿书是针对日本人和苏联人而写的。因为在那个时期——60年代末、70年代初——日本人和苏联人杀死了成千上万的抹香鲸。尤其是在北大平洋。我们以为把世界舆论写在纸上就会使他们说，'瞧，所有这些人都不喜欢我们干的事。我们别干了。'当然啦，他们并没有住手。”


Not at first, Commercial whaling peaked in the mid-1960s, with more than 60,000
whales killed each year. The International Whaling Commission, a group of member
nations aimed at regulating the industry, began to make recommendations to end
commercial whaling entirely. Why kill whales for soap, or fuel or paints and
vernishes, even margarine, if we had substitutes for all those products? The
seemingly senseless slaughter focused the world's attention on the whale and
consequently the International whaling Commission or IWC.

最初的确没有住手。商业性捕鲸在60年代中期达到顶峰，每年杀死6万多条鲸鱼。国际捕鲸委员会，—个以管理捕鲸业为宗旨的会员国组织，开始提出建议。要完全终止商业性捕鲸。如果我们能有制作肥皂，或燃料，或油漆和清漆，甚至人造黄油的代用原料，为什么要杀鲸鱼呢?这种看来是愚蠢的屠杀使全世界的注意力集中到鲸鱼身上，从而集中到国际捕鲸委员会(即IWC）的身上。


"And since it's said nowhere in the constitution of the IWC that you had to be
whaling nation to join you have countries like Kenya and the Seychelles.
Switzerland is a member of the IWC, a country not known for its whaling history.
Countries joined because they felt that this was something that needed to be
done. "

“因为国际捕鲸委员会的率程里没有规定只有捕鲸国才能加入该组织，所以会员国里就有了肯尼亚和塞舌尔群岛。瑞士是国际捕鲸委员会的成员，而它并不以捕鲸业著称。有些国家之所以加入该组织是因为他们认为这是必须做的一件事。”


By 1986, the Commission had passed a moratoriunm on commercial whaling. But
since the organization had no enforcement powers, it could and can not impose
sanctions on violators. Only a few nations-Japan. Iceland, and Norway-continue
to hunt whales commercially.

到1986年，该委员会通过了一项暂停商业性捕鲸的决定。但是，因为该组织没有强迫执行的权力，它当时不能，现在也不能对犯犯者进行制裁。只有为数不多的几个国家——日本、冰岛和挪威——仍在继续进行商业性捕鲸。　


Richard Ellis says there is something magical about this animal caught in the
net of life and time. and we must continue to fight to preserve it, because in
the end we are really protecting a small part of ourselves and our earth.

理查德·埃利斯说，被困在生命与时间之网中的这种动物具有一种不可思议的魔力，我们必须继续为保存它而进行斗争，因为归根结底我们是在保护我们自己和我们这个地球的一小部分。