经济学人 ｜ 熊，究竟是一种怎样的生物？

From myth to art, bears have long captivated people

从神话到艺术，熊一直令人着迷

A new book tells the story of eight bear species and their travails

一本新书讲述了八个熊种的故事以及它们的经历

When Michael Bond wrote his first draft of “A Bear Called Paddington” in the 1950s, he described his hat-clad protagonist as hailing from “darkest Africa”. Bond’s literary agent, Harvey Unna, liked the story but spotted an error: no bears lived in Africa. 

上世纪50年代，当迈克尔·邦德写作《小熊帕丁顿》的初稿时，他说这个戴着帽子的主人公小熊来自“最黑的非洲”。邦德的文学经纪人哈维·乌纳很喜欢这个故事，但他发现了一个错误：非洲没有熊。

“Children either know this or should know this,” Unna wrote, adding that, “There are plenty of bears in Asia, Europe and America, and quite a few on the stock exchange.” Bond changed Paddington’s origins to “darkest Peru”, modelling him on the spectacled bear from there.

乌纳写道，“孩子们知道这个，或者应该知道这个。” 他补充说：“亚洲、欧洲和美洲有很多熊，有不少是在证券交易所。”于是，邦德把帕丁顿的出生地改成了“最黑的秘鲁”，赋予了它秘鲁眼镜熊的形象。

Bears occupy a special place in myth and mind. Youngsters are read stories about Paddington, Winnie-the-Poohand the three bears and are presented with stuffed teddies. Perhaps also because bears can stand erect on two legs, resembling humans, people have long felt drawn to them. 

在神话里和人们的心中，熊有着特殊的地位。孩子们从小就会读到帕丁顿、小熊维尼和三只熊的故事，收到毛绒泰迪熊作为礼物。或许是因为熊能像人一样两腿站立，人们一直对熊感到亲近。

Bears have featured in ancient paintings, constellation names (ursa major, otherwise known as the Big Dipper) and diplomatic negotiations. China’s parcelling out of pandas to allies has precedent: in 1252 King Haakon IV of Norway gave Henry III a polar bear, which spent its days swimming and fishing in the River Thames.

熊出现在古代绘画中、星座名字里（大熊星座，又称北斗七星）和外交谈判中。像中国那样向友好国家赠送熊猫的做法也有先例：1252年，挪威国王哈康四世送给英格兰国王亨利三世一只北极熊，这只熊从此就在泰晤士河里游泳捕鱼。

“Eight Bears” explores the wonder and friction that characterise the relationship between bruins and people. The author, Gloria Dickie, a journalist for Reuters, travels around the world, bringing readers on a riveting and unique sort of bear hunt. 

《八种熊》探讨了熊与人之间特有的奇妙关系和摩擦。作者格洛丽亚·迪奇是路透社的记者，她游历全球，带读者踏上了一趟扣人心弦的独特的寻熊之旅。 

She dresses up like an “imprisoned smurf” to volunteer at a panda-research centre in China, ventures into arctic temperatures to find polar bears in Canada, hikes in Peru in the hope of seeing Paddington’s ilk and wanders through villages of India to meet people mauled by sloth bears, whose name belies their aggression.

她穿戴得像个“被关押的蓝精灵”，在中国一个大熊猫研究中心做志愿者；在加拿大走进北极的冰天雪地，寻找北极熊；在秘鲁徒步跋涉，希望能见到帕丁顿的同类；穿行在印度的村庄间，探访被懒熊咬伤的人，这种熊的名字掩盖了它们的攻击性。

There are just eight bear species, compared with 41 types of felines and more than 500 primates. This offers pleasant concision, but Ms Dickie’s tone is sombre. Polar bears are not the only ones on thin ice; most bear species are threatened by habitat destruction and climate change. 

世界上只有八种熊，而猫科动物有41种，灵长类动物更是有超过500种。这种简洁令人愉快，但迪奇却笔调沉郁。濒危的不只是北极熊，大多数熊种都面临栖息地被破坏和气候变化的威胁。

Pandas, for example, need to eat about 18kg of bamboo a day, but agricultural expansion imperils their food supply. Deforestation has destroyed the habitat of sloth bears (India’s most deadly wild animal). During droughts they roam in search of water, sparking conflict with people, who pursue “revenge kills” after bear attacks.

例如熊猫，它一天要吃掉约18公斤竹子，但农业扩张威胁着它们的囗粮供应。砍伐森林破坏了懒熊（印度最致命的野生动物）的栖息地。在干旱期，懒熊会到处寻找水源，引发了与人类的冲突，在被懒熊攻击后，人会进行“报复性杀戮”。

Ms Dickie concludes that only three bear species are likely to thrive past the end of this century: black bears, American brown bears and pandas. (There are fewer than 2,000 pandas, but China has started to take panda preservation seriously.)

迪奇推断，只有三种熊能活过本世纪末：美洲黑熊、棕熊和大熊猫。（世界上现有熊猫不到2000只，但中国正在认真对待大熊猫保护工作）。

This book is about bears but also about people, revealing two opposing sides of human nature. One is people’s cruelty. “Bear-baiting”, in which bruins were tied up and forced to fight with dogs, was a popular sport in Britain, made illegal only in 1835. (Elizabeth Iso enjoyed bear-baiting that she overruled Parliament’s attempt to ban it in 1585.) 

这本书是关于熊的，但也是关于人的——它揭示了人性的两面性。一面是人的残忍。“斗熊”是把熊拴起来，强迫它和狗打斗，这在英国曾经是一种流行的观赏性运动， 直到1835年才被列为非法。（伊丽莎白一世非常喜欢斗熊，她在1585年驳回了英国议会禁止斗熊的提议。）

Although outlawed in India in 1972, “bear dancing” has persisted. People kill mother sloth bears and kidnap cubs; they then bash out their teeth and sometimes use muzzles with nails, forcing them into a “dance of fear and desperation” that offers “the illusion of merriment”.

虽然印度于1972年宣布“舞熊”为非法，但这种表演却一直存在。人们杀死母懒熊，抢走懒熊幼崽，打断小懒熊的牙齿，有时还给它们戴上带钉子的嘴套，迫使它们“因恐惧和绝望而手舞足蹈”，给人以“欢乐的假象”。

Elsewhere bears are enslaved for their bile. In Vietnam (where bear farming is illegal) and China (where it is not), sun and moon bears are kept in cages. Bile is extracted from their gall bladders in a process akin to torture. The resulting “liquid gold” is sold for its anti-inflammatory properties. 

在其他地方，熊因为它们的胆汁而被奴役。在越南（养熊是非法的）和中国（养熊不违法），人们以笼子圈养马来熊和亚洲黑熊，用一种近乎酷刑的方法从它们的胆囊中提取胆汁。由此得来的胆汁因其抗炎功效被誉为“液体黄金”出售。

Bears’ imprisonment is made all the more disturbing by their intelligence. Researchers have observed that black bears can distinguish between animals and even gauge numbers.

熊很聪明，这就更加让囚禁熊的做法令人不安。研究人员发现黑熊能够区分不同的动物，甚至还能计数。

But people also have a more positive side. They are building systems that allow for co-existence, from bear “jails” (where creatures are sent if they come too close to population centres) to bear-proof garbage bins and lockers. Many people around the world are trying to save and improve bears’ lives, proving there is some beauty in this story of beasts and humans.

但人也有好的一面。人们正在建立能实现人熊共存的系统，从熊“监狱”（当动物过于接近人类聚集区时，就会把它们送去那里）到防熊垃圾箱和储物柜等。世界各地有很多人在努力拯救熊，改善它们的生存状况，可见人与兽之间的故事也有美好的一面。

重难点词汇：

constellation [ˌkɑːnstəˈleɪʃn] n. 星座；群体

rivet [ˈrɪvɪt] n. 铆钉；暗扣 v. 铆接；固定；吸引

maul [mɔl] v. 咬伤；抓伤；抨击；粗暴对待

imperil [ɪmˈperəl] v. 使处于…危险

overrule [ˌoʊvərˈruːl] v. 否决；宣布…无效；驳回

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