座头鲸的诗与远方 | 卫报

Humpback whale makes record journey of more than 13,000km from South America to Africa

座头鲸创纪录从南美洲到非洲

航行超过 13,000 公里

Research done with the help of citizen science shows male humpback completed almost twice the typical migration distance

在公民科学的帮助下进行的研究表明，雄性座头鲸完成的迁徙距离几乎是正常迁徙距离的两倍

Petra Stock

佩特拉·斯托克

Wed 11 Dec 2024 08.05 GMT

2024 年 12 月 11 日星期三 08.05 GMT

（谷歌翻译）

A humpback whale has journeyed more than 13,000km from South America to Africa, which researchers say is the longest distance ever recorded for an individual whale.

一头座头鲸从南美洲游到了非洲，行程超过 13,000 公里，研究人员称这是有史以来记录的个体鲸鱼游动距离最长的记录。

New research published in Royal Society Open Science recorded sightings of a male humpback whale, initially spotted near the coast of Colombia and recorded nearly a decade later near Zanzibar, Africa.

英国皇家学会开放科学杂志发表的新研究记录了一只雄性座头鲸的目击事件，该鲸鱼最初是在哥伦比亚海岸附近发现的，近十年后在非洲桑给巴尔附近又被记录下来。

Co-author Ted Cheeseman, a whale biologist based at Southern Cross University, said the distance travelled was unusual – almost twice the typical migration – and suggesting the whale ended up way out of its usual range and population group.

这项研究的共同作者、南十字星大学的鲸鱼生物学家泰德·奇斯曼表示，这头鲸鱼迁徙的距离很不寻常——几乎是典型迁徙距离的两倍——这表明这头鲸鱼最终远远超出了其通常的活动范围和种群。

Researchers were unsure how the whale may have been received, he said. “When he showed up, was it like, ‘Oooh, sexy foreigner with a cool accent’?”

他说，研究人员不确定这头鲸鱼会受到怎样的对待。“当它出现时，是不是感觉‘哦，性感的外国人，口音很酷’？”

The discovery was made possible by Happywhale, a platform Cheeseman co-founded, which enabled researchers, citizen scientists and whale watchers to record sightings and then identify individual whales by their flukes, using a modified form of facial recognition.

这一发现得益于Cheeseman 联合创办的平台Happywhale，该平台使研究人员、公民科学家和鲸鱼观察者能够记录目击情况，然后使用改进的面部识别技术通过鲸尾识别单个鲸鱼。

A whale’s tail, or “flukeprint”, is as unique and identifiable as a fingerprint. “It’s like a five-metre banner of their ID,” Cheeseman said, pointing out that each has its own different patterns, pigmentation and scars.

鲸鱼的尾巴，又称“尾印”，与指纹一样独特且易于辨认。“它就像是一条五米长的身份证，”奇斯曼说，并指出每条鲸鱼都有自己不同的图案、色素沉着和疤痕。

Whale scientist Dr Vanessa Pirotta, who was not involved with the research, said it was a “brilliant example” of combining citizen science and technology to “take a single day of whale watching and turn it into something remarkable”.

鲸鱼科学家瓦内萨·皮罗塔博士没有参与这项研究，她表示，这是公民科学与技术相结合的“绝佳范例”，“将一天的赏鲸活动变成了一件了不起的事情”。

There was a lot that was still not known about whales, Pirotta said. “It’s always so refreshingly wonderful, especially in my career, to hear these fascinating stories documented in the scientific literature.”

皮罗塔说，关于鲸鱼，还有很多未知的东西。“听到科学文献中记载的这些迷人的故事总是令人耳目一新，尤其是在我的职业生涯中。”

Pirotta is the author of Humpback Highway, a book taking its title from local whale populations’ migratory route along Australia’s east and west coasts. “They come to Australian waters generally to breed or give birth. And then they’ll return and migrate south to the southern waters to feed,” she said.

皮罗塔是《座头鲸公路》一书的作者，这本书的书名取自当地鲸鱼种群沿澳大利亚东西海岸的迁徙路线。“它们通常来到澳大利亚海域繁殖或产子。然后它们会返回并向南迁徙到南部海域觅食，”她说。

Her own research, tracking an all-white humpback called Migaloo, showed whales often do not “stick to the script”. Sometimes, instead of heading up Australia’s east coast, Migaloo crossed “the ditch” and went across to New Zealand instead.

她自己对一头名为米伽卢的全白座头鲸进行了追踪研究，结果表明鲸鱼通常不“按剧本游”。有时，米伽卢不会朝澳大利亚东海岸游去，而是越过“海峡”，前往新西兰。

White whale Migaloo spotted off Australia’s Gold Coast Guardian

澳大利亚黄金海岸附近发现白鲸米伽卢守护者

Researchers did not yet know whether new technology was revealing more about existing whale movements, or whether the unusual patterns reflected a changing environment due to climate change.

研究人员尚不清楚新技术是否能揭示更多有关现有鲸鱼运动的信息，或者这些不寻常的模式是否反映了气候变化导致的环境变化。

“We are learning way more because we have the tools in place,” Pirotta said.

皮罗塔说：“由于我们拥有现成的工具，因此我们学到的东西更多了。”

“As a world we are way more connected, and that means that the stories that we can tell about whales are more connected globally than ever before.”

“我们这个世界的联系变得更加紧密，这意味着我们讲述的有关鲸鱼的故事比以往任何时候都更加具有全球联系。”