《人類的神秘力量》:貓是如何影響健康的?

《人類的神秘力量》:貓是如何影響健康的?

When a stray cat wandered onto the tracks of a midtown 7 train in New York City last month, the MTA halted the entire subway line until the animal was out of harm's way. At the same time, the U.S. government euthanizes millions of stray cats each year.

上個(gè)月，當(dāng)一只流浪貓?jiān)诩~約中城7號(hào)線的鐵軌上游蕩時(shí)，大都會(huì)運(yùn)輸署暫停了整條地鐵線路，直到這只貓脫離危險(xiǎn)。與此同時(shí)，美國政府每年對(duì)數(shù)百萬只流浪貓實(shí)施安樂死。

They're a disaster for the environment: American cats kill between 1.4 and 3.7 billion birds each year, and they've been implicated in dozens of mammalian extinctions. (The Australian government has funded research into the most efficient methods of cat control -- yielding products like a poison-laced kangaroo sausage called "Eradicat.")

它們對(duì)環(huán)境是一種災(zāi)難: 美國貓每年殺死14億到37億只鳥，它們還與幾十次哺乳動(dòng)物的滅絕有關(guān)。(澳大利亞政府資助了一項(xiàng)研究，研究最有效的貓控制方法——生產(chǎn)一種有毒的袋鼠香腸，名為“根除劑”。)

Nearly half of house cats have physically attacked their owners.

近一半的家貓會(huì)攻擊它們的主人。

Humans' relationship with cats is rife with paradox. There are an estimated 100 million pet cats in the U.S., and their ranks are only growing. "Cat culture" flourishes online. The cat-less can get their fix at "cat cafés" opening across Asia, Europe, and North America.

人類與貓的關(guān)系充滿了矛盾。據(jù)估計(jì)，美國有1億只寵物貓，而且他們的隊(duì)伍還在不斷壯大。“貓文化”在網(wǎng)上盛行。不養(yǎng)貓的人可以在遍布亞洲、歐洲和北美的“貓咖”里得到滿足。

In "The Lion in the Living Room: How Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World," journalist Abigail Tucker traces cats' journey from fearsome Near Eastern predator to global intruder, shedding light on how this baby-sized beast worked its way into so many homes.

在《客廳里的獅子:貓是如何馴服我們并征服世界的》一書中，記者阿比蓋爾·塔克追溯了貓從可怕的近東掠食者到全球入侵者的歷程，揭示了這種嬰兒大小的野獸是如何進(jìn)入這么多家庭的。

Science of Us spoke with Tucker about the similarities between cats and lions, and the somewhat baffling question of why people put up with them.

《我們的科學(xué)》雜志采訪了塔克，討論了貓和獅子之間的相似之處，以及人們?yōu)槭裁匆淌芩鼈冞@個(gè)令人困惑的問題。

You write that cats are a rather unlikely house pet. Why is that?

你把貓寫成是一個(gè)相當(dāng)不可能的家庭寵物。這是為什么?

Cats are uniquely ill-suited for domestication. When people set out to domesticate the first animals, we targeted animals that were easy to keep in confined spaces, and animals that would eat a variety of things -- think of a pig or a goat, which will eat any old swill left over from your kitchen. Cats eat only fancy food that we could eat ourselves.

貓是唯一不適合馴化的動(dòng)物。當(dāng)人們開始馴化第一只動(dòng)物時(shí)，我們的目標(biāo)是那些容易被關(guān)在狹小空間里的動(dòng)物，以及那些會(huì)吃各種各樣?xùn)|西的動(dòng)物——想想豬或山羊，它們會(huì)吃你廚房里剩下的任何舊泔水。貓只吃我們自己能吃的美味食物。

We also tended toward animals that we could dominate. Dogs and cattle have lead animals, and we can control them by acting the alpha dog or the lead steer. But cats are solitary animals that don't have social hierarchies. They're hard to control, and they don't tolerate confinement well.

我們也傾向于那些我們可以支配的動(dòng)物。狗和牛都有領(lǐng)頭的動(dòng)物，我們可以通過扮演領(lǐng)頭狗或領(lǐng)頭牛來控制它們。但是貓是獨(dú)居動(dòng)物，沒有社會(huì)等級(jí)。他們很難控制，也不能很好地忍受監(jiān)禁。

So how did they trick us into feeding them and taking care of them?

那么它們是如何欺騙我們?nèi)ノ桂B(yǎng)和照顧它們的呢？

For a long time, it was probably just an accident. But there are reasons that cats made the transition, but we don't have badgers or foxes as pets today. One reason is that cats have a set of physical features that, for completely accidental reasons, remind us of human babies.

很長一段時(shí)間，這可能只是一個(gè)意外。但是貓的這種轉(zhuǎn)變是有原因的，但是我們今天沒有獾或狐貍作為寵物。一個(gè)原因是貓有一系列的生理特征，完全是出于偶然的原因，讓我們想起了人類的嬰兒。

Cats are bad for your health, bad for the environment . Why would you still want to have a cat?

貓對(duì)你的健康有害，對(duì)環(huán)境有害。你為什么還想養(yǎng)貓?

I lost a lot of my sentimental regard for cats -- that "oh, my cute baby" response. But I find that I marvel at them more. I can appreciate the backstory, how this little animal managed to carve out a place for itself in the world, and to become a dreaded invasive species and -- culturally speaking -- one of the most powerful animals on the planet.

我對(duì)貓失去了很多情感上的尊重——那種“噢，我可愛的寶寶”的反應(yīng)。但我發(fā)現(xiàn)我對(duì)他們更驚嘆。我可以欣賞它的故事背景，它是如何在這個(gè)世界上為自己開辟出一片天地，成為一個(gè)可怕的入侵物種，從文化上講，它是地球上最強(qiáng)大的動(dòng)物之一。

To me, it's about the wonder of life, and how this animal has gotten so far in the world without giving us much in return. Humans are so good at extracting what they want from the environment. With cats, we're not necessarily holding the reins. We don't even know what we want, but we love it.

對(duì)我來說，這是關(guān)于生命的奇跡，以及這種動(dòng)物是如何在沒有給我們太多回報(bào)的情況下，在這個(gè)世界上走了這么遠(yuǎn)。人類非常善于從環(huán)境中提取他們想要的東西。對(duì)于貓，我們并不一定要控制它。我們甚至不知道自己想要什么，但我們愛它。