好英语网印度老虎吃人 该保护老虎还是保护人？
By 11:00, Gopamma Nayaka knew something was wrong. Her husband, Hanumantha, should have returned from collecting firewood an hour before.
到上午11点钟, 格帕玛‧纳雅卡（Gopamma Nayaka）知道可能大事不好。她的丈夫哈努曼塔（Hanumantha）出外拾柴火，本应该在一小时前就回到家。
Gopamma sent for her son, who gathered a search party and headed to Bandipur Tiger Reserve, a nearby national park in south-western India. Just a few metres inside the forest, the group discovered Hanumantha’s half-eaten remains. The tiger that killed him was still sitting next to the body.
格帕玛派人去找她的儿子，儿子组织了一个搜寻队，到邦迪普尔老虎保护区（Bandipur Tiger Reserve）找他的父亲。这个在他家附近的动物保护区位于印度西南部一个国家公园内。走进森林仅几公尺，搜寻者就发现了哈努曼塔被吃掉一半的尸体，吃掉他的老虎还仍然蹲坐在旁边。
In the wake of her husband’s death, Gopamma struggled not only with grief but economic hardship. Her son had to drop out of university and move back home to support her. “My life was much better when my husband was alive,” she says. “My older son could have studied, but now both of my sons have to work. I feel insecure and dependent.”
格帕玛的丈夫被老虎杀死后，悲伤难抑，而且她经济顿失支柱，生活陷入困境。儿子不得不从大学辍学，回家来养活母亲。格帕玛说：“我丈夫在世时，我的生活要好很多。我的长子本来可以念书求学，但是现在我的两个儿子都得工作。我无所保障，无人可以依靠。”
Despite all this, Gopamma feels no resentment toward the tiger that killed her husband. Like many Hindus in India, she views humans as one piece of a complex web of life composed of all creatures, each with an equal right to existence. Nor is she worried that India’s tiger population is on the rise. Her husband’s death, she says, has nothing to do with the fact that the government is trying to save tigers: “This was my fate.”
但格帕玛对杀死她丈夫的老虎却无怨无恨。像许多印度教徒一样，她认为人类是由万物组成的复杂生命网络的其中一员，每个生物都有平等的生存权利。她也不担心印度的老虎数量正在增加。她说，她丈夫之死与政府试图拯救老虎无关，“这是我的宿命。”
Rural Indians are unique in the world for their high tolerance for co-existing with potentially deadly wildlife. “You don’t find this in other cultures,” says Ullas Karanth, a recently retired carnivore biologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society and a leading expert on tigers. “If this kind of thing happened in Montana or Brazil, they’d wipe out everything the next day.”
与可能吃人的野兽共存于同一土地，印度农民对此的接受忍耐度很高，这在全世界上可能是独一无二的。最近才退休的野生动物保护协会（Wildlife Conservation Society）食肉类生物学家、老虎研究的权威专家乌拉斯‧卡兰西（Ullas Karanth）说：“你不可能在其他文化类型中看到这种现象。如果虎吃人这种事发生在美国蒙大拿或巴西，他们第二天就会把一切都干掉。”
The live-and-let-live outlook has also been foundational for India’s transformation into the world’s greatest stronghold for tigers. The country holds just 25% of total tiger habitat, but accounts for 70% of all remaining wild tigers, or around 3,000 animals today.
自己活也让他人活的宽容人生观也是印度能成为世界上最大老虎家园的文化基础。这个国家拥有的老虎栖息地仅占全球的25%，但却拥有全球现存野生老虎的70%，约3000头左右。
Success does not come without cost, however. India’s protected areas have not expanded at the same rate as its tiger population, forcing some big cats to turn to human-dominated landscapes for survival. Livestock are killed and sometimes so are people.
然而，印度的成功不是没有代价。虽然老虎数量增加，但印度的老虎保护区面积并没有随之等同扩大，这迫使一些大型猫科动物闯入人类生活地区觅食求生，杀死牲畜，有时还会吃人。
Attacks are relatively rare, with around 40 to 50 people annually killed by tigers – compared to around 350 people killed each year by elephants. But while getting killed by an elephant is typically viewed as something that just “happens”, like a car accident, deaths caused by tigers tap into a primordial fear that, if left unresolved, can drive communities to extremes. In many places, traditional tolerance is beginning to fray, leading to riots and targeted killing of tigers.
其实虎吃人事件与大象杀人相比之下要少很多，死于老虎的每年约有40至50人，而被大象杀死的则约有350人。不过大象杀人事件通常被认为如同车祸，是偶然发生的，人们处之泰然，但老虎吃人却会触动人内心一种原始的恐惧，如果无法杜绝，可能会使得乡村社区的宽容达到极限程度。在许多地方，传统的宽容文化开始瓦解，导致了民众暴乱和捕杀老虎。
Not every tiger is a man-eater – not even close. No exact numbers for this behaviour exist, but Karanth guesses that only 10 to 15 of the animals become persistent predators of humans each year.
而且不是每只老虎都会吃人，有些老虎甚至不会接近人类。至今也无老虎攻击人类事件的确切数字，但卡兰西猜测，这种猛兽每年可能有10到15头会以人类为猎物。
When this does happen, though, the most certain way to keep the peace, Karanth and other experts believe, is to quickly dispose of man-eating tigers before they kill again. “That’s the attitude necessary if you want to have a large number of tigers,” Karanth says. “You can’t have everybody in the countryside turning against tigers because of one animal.”
然而，当真的发生老虎攻击人类时，卡兰西和其他专家认为，维持人虎和平最可靠方法是在食人老虎再次吃人之前就把这些老虎干掉。卡兰西说：“如果你想要大量的老虎，就要有所取舍，你不能让农村里的每个人都因为一只动物吃人而反对全体老虎。”
This is reflected in Indian law, which states that chief wildlife wardens and senior federal officials can issue an order to shoot if it is warranted in the interest of public safety. “If a tiger is really a man-eater, we have to go after this man-eating tiger according to a very well-defined standard operating procedure,” says Anup Kumar Nayak, additional director general of India’s National Tiger Conservation Authority.
上述观点也反映在印度的法律中。印度法律规定，出于公共安全的考虑，野生动物保护负责人和高级联邦官员可以下令射杀老虎。印度国家老虎保护管理局的副局长阿鲁普‧库马尔‧纳雅克（Anup Kumar Nayak）说：“如果某只老虎真的要吃人，我们必须按照一个非常明确的标准操作程序来对付这只吃人的老虎。”
But urban animal rights groups – which hold strong political clout in India – don’t see it that way. No matter how many people a tiger has allegedly killed, many activists argue that man-eaters should be trapped and put into captivity, translocated and re-released, or simply left alone. “I feel I am the voice for the voiceless animals,” says Jerryl Banait, a physician and leading wildlife activist based in Nagpur. “You cannot inflict atrocities and injustices on animals just because they cannot express themselves.”
但在印度拥有强大政治影响力，位于城市的动物权利组织并不这么认为。许多活动人士认为，不管某只老虎据说吃了多少人，都只应该把吃人老虎捕获后关起来，转移他处再释放到野外，或者干脆不管。那格浦尔（Nagpur）的医生、野生动物权益活动家杰里尔·巴纳特（Jerryl Banait）说：“我认为自己是无声动物的代言人，你不能因为动物不能表达自己，就对动物施加暴行和不公正。”
But none of the non-lethal measures Banait and others call for are viable ways of dealing with tigers that stalk and kill humans, Karanth says. Tiger conflicts quickly metastasise into “political football”, he continues, and while the government waffles under competing pressures, man-eaters go on killing. Local people often eventually enact their own solution, poaching not just the tiger in question, but targeting all the tigers in their area. They begin to view India’s forest department as the enemy – and conservation as something opposed to their best interests.
但是，卡兰西说，巴纳特和其他人呼吁采取避免杀虎的各项措施，其中没有一项可以解决如何对付跟踪和杀害人类的老虎。他接着说，人虎之间的冲突问题变成了“政治足球”，政府在各方的压力下仍在扯皮，而食人老虎则继续吃人，逍遥法外。但受害的村民最终会自行了结，不仅捕杀涉嫌吃人的老虎，而是将目标锁定在他们村庄附近的所有老虎。因此村民开始把印度的林业部门视为敌人，将生态和动物保育视为是与他们的权益作对。
Under this scenario, at best, tiger numbers will stagnate. At worst, widespread revenge killings will cause the species to all but disappear.
情形演变到此，最好的结果是，老虎的数量不减但也不增。在最坏的情况下，村民会大规模报复杀戮，结果就会使得老虎这个物种遭到近似灭绝的灾难。
For India to continue to shine as a tiger success story, Karanth says, it needs to come to terms with the fact that what’s best for a species does not always align with what’s best for an individual animal – especially an individual that has taken human lives. In other words, the future of the world’s tigers largely depends on convincing Indians to accept that man-eating predators must die in order for the species to thrive. “There’s no other way,” he says.
卡兰西说，印度要想继续成为保育老虎的成功典范，就必须认识到这样一个事实：对一个物种最有利的事并非一定有利于这个物种的某一只老虎，尤其是某一只吃人的老虎。换句话说，今天地球上老虎这个物种在未来还能否存在下去，在很大程度上端赖于能否说服印度人，为了这个物种的繁荣昌盛，吃人的老虎必须被处死。他说，人类“没有别的办法”。
Price of success
成功的代价
No one knows how many tigers once roamed India’s diverse landscapes, but the cats certainly numbered in the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands. Their decline began centuries ago, with the arrival of shotguns and steel traps. Tigers were targeted for sport by the rich and for bounties by the poor, with one historian tallying over 80,000 of the big cats killed from 1875 to 1925. Hunting also wiped out tigers’ prey, causing the species to be doubly impacted.
没有人知道历史上在印度各种大自然生态中曾经倘佯着多少老虎，但这些大型猫科动物肯定不止成百上千，而应该是成千上万只。几百年前，随着猎枪和钢制捕兽器的出现，老虎数量开始下降。老虎是富人狩猎消遣的目标，也是穷人为获得奖赏的猎杀对象。一位历史学家统计，在1875年至1925年间印度一共捕杀了8万多只这种大型猫科动物。狩猎也消灭了老虎的猎物，使老虎这个物种受到双重冲击。
By the mid-20th Century, India had lost its Asiatic cheetah and nearly all its Asiatic lions to overhunting. Its tigers would have likely disappeared as well were it not for Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who outlawed all hunting in 1971. Sometimes referred to as “India’s greatest wildlife saviour”, Gandhi strengthened wildlife legislation, set up protected areas and created a tiger task force.
到20世纪中叶，印度的亚洲猎豹和几乎所有的亚洲狮都因过度捕猎而灭绝。要不是印度总理甘地夫人（Indira Gandhi）在1971年宣布狩猎为非法，印度的老虎可能也会从此绝迹。有时被称为“印度最伟大的野生动物拯救者”的甘地夫人加强了野生动物立法，并建立了动物保护区，及成立保护老虎机构。
“This was happening around the time of Rachel Carson and similar environmental movements in Europe – and the same wave came to India,” says Krithi Karanth, chief conservation scientist at the Centre for Wildlife Studies, a non-profit organisation in Bangalore, and Ullas Karanth’s daughter. “People started waking up to the fact that nature’s in trouble and that we can’t continue business as usual.”
卡兰西的女儿克里西·卡兰西（Krithi Karanth）是班加罗尔一个非盈利组织“野生动物研究中心”的首席生态保育科学家。她说：“这大约发生在雷切尔·卡森和欧洲类似环保运动的时期，这一环保浪潮也席卷了印度。人们开始意识到，大自然遇到了麻烦，我们不能像以往那样继续下去。”雷切尔‧卡森（Rachel Carson）是美国海洋生物学家，她的名著《寂静的春天》1962年发表后推动了美国和全球生态环保事业。
But tigers didn’t immediately rebound. In the 1980s, when Ullas Karanth, now 70, made the switch from a career in engineering to one in conservation, roughly 2,500 tigers still roamed the landscape. Ullas, who has always had a fondness for large predators, decided to focus his career on recovering his country’s tiger population. Figuring out how many tigers India had left was a first step. In 1991, he developed a novel, accurate counting method by using camera traps to identify individual tigers’ unique stripe patterns. He was puzzled, however, when he found that tiger densities varied wildly, from fewer than one to up to 15 tigers per 100 square kilometers.
但老虎数量并没有因狩猎非法化而立即反弹。现年70岁的卡兰西，在上世纪80年代从工程领域转行到环保事业时，那时在印度丛林中倘佯的老虎大约还有2500只。对大型食肉动物一直情有独钟的卡兰西决定他的事业重点应是致力于恢复本国老虎的数量，计算印度还剩多少老虎是第一步。1991年，他发明了一种新颖而又准确的计数方法，利用相机陷阱来识别每只老虎身上独特的条纹图案。然而，他发现老虎分布密度差异很大，有的每100平方公里不到1只，有的多达15只，他感到困惑不解。
Ullas suspected that low prey densities due to bushmeat poaching could be behind this – and his hunch proved correct. He eventually confirmed that a single tiger kills around 50 prey animals each year, meaning it needs a population of at least 500 prey animals to sustain it. Based on an extensive review of old hunting journals, taxidermy notes and land tenure records, Krithi later estimated that tigers disappeared from 67% of India over a 100-year period, and that many of their prey species, including deer and gaur (the world’s largest bovid), likewise declined. “The only species that doesn’t seem to be in trouble are wild pigs,” Krithi says. India’s tiger populations, in other words, are held back by the fact that there’s not enough to eat.
他怀疑，原因可能是由于偷猎造成老虎的猎物过低所致。他的预感被证明是正确的。他最终证实，现在一只老虎每年只杀死约50只猎物，但实际老虎需要至少猎杀500只猎物才能维持生存。卡兰西大量查阅旧狩猎期刊、动物标本和土地使用记录后估计，在100年的时间里，老虎在印度67%的地区绝迹，老虎的许多猎物种类，包括鹿和白鹿（世界上最大的动物），数量也同样减少。她说：“唯一没有陷入困境的物种是野猪”。换句话说，印度的老虎因为没有足够的食物其数量无法增加。
Starting in the 1990s, Ullas began pushing for science-based tiger management with a special emphasis on conservation of prey species. He collaborated with others to facilitate the voluntary, government-funded relocation of villages situated within protected areas. When tiger poaching began to surge as a result of growing Chinese demand for the predators’ parts, Ullas’s counting method revealed the severity of the problem, and he worked with officials to develop effective anti-poaching programs.
从20世纪90年代开始，卡兰西开始推动以科学为基础的老虎保育管理，特别强调要保护老虎赖以为生的猎物。他与其他人合作，协助受保护地区内的村庄在政府资助下自愿搬迁到保护区外。由于中国传统中医认为，老虎身体很多部位，如虎骨、虎鞭都可以入药，因此中国对老虎的市场需求不断增长，也导致印度偷猎老虎的个案行为开始激增。卡兰西的计数方法揭示了问题的严重性，他与官员们一起制定了有效的反偷猎计划。
As a result of these and other efforts, tiger populations began to grow. The greater Malenad landscape in southwestern India, for example – which includes Bandipur Tiger Reserve, where Gopamma’s husband was killed – is now home to 400 tigers, more than four times as many as when Ullas began working there 25 years ago.
由于这些和其他措施，印度老虎的数量开始增长。例如，印度西南部的大马莱纳德（Malenad）地区的荒野现在有400只老虎，是卡兰西25年前开始在那里工作时的四倍多。格帕玛的丈夫被虎所杀的邦迪普尔老虎保护区就属于这个地区。
As the predator’s numbers climb, however, conflicts become inevitable. Competition and territoriality force certain tigers to leave protected areas, especially youngsters seeking to establish their own territories and injured or old animals desperate for food. Most tigers in this situation prey on livestock, but a few wind up killing people as well.
然而，随着老虎数量的攀升，老虎之间的生存冲突变得不可避免。生存竞争和领地争夺使某些类老虎离开保护区，尤其是那些想要建立自己领地的年轻老虎和迫切需要觅食的受伤或年老的老虎。在这种情况下，大多数离开保护区的老虎会捕食人类牲畜，也有少数老虎会吃人。
“Tigers are normally terrified of humans,” Ullas says. “But when they discover the vulnerability of people, they suddenly lose that fear and realize these big, tailless monkeys are so easy to catch.”
卡兰西说：“老虎通常害怕人类，但当它们发现人类实际很脆弱，就会突然失去这种恐惧，意识到捕杀这些没有尾巴的大猴子易如反掌。”
Killing endangered species sounds counterintuitive, but in the case of habitual man-eaters, Ullas and others believe it is the only option for ensuring conservation of tigers as a species. Like pruning a tree with dead branches, the loss of a few problematic individuals has no negative impact on the whole, they say. Healthy tiger populations experience annual mortalities of 15-20% anyway, and with reproduction rates similar to house cats, deaths are quickly replaced by new births. Because man-eaters are relatively rare, under this system, only a couple dozen or so tigers would need to be put down each year.
猎杀濒危物种听起来有悖常理，但卡兰西和其他专家认为，如果某只老虎习惯了吃人，除掉这个别的老虎是确保老虎这个物种的整体得到保护的唯一选择。他们说，就像修剪枯枝一样，失去一些有问题的个体对整个群体没有负面影响。健康的老虎种群每年的死亡率为15-20%，繁殖率与家猫相似，老病的老虎死亡很快就会被新生的老虎取代。由于惯于吃人的老虎较少，在这种制度下，需要捕杀的老虎无非20来只左右而已。
Some animal activists argue, however, that there are too few tigers left in the wild to justify even one being killed. Others present their case from a moral standpoint. As one Twitter user in India wrote following the death of a man-eating tiger last year: “Congratulations people, another tiger murdered, another species closer to extinction.” Another lamented: “We live in a society where poor animals are killed instead of showing mercy by capturing them.”
然而，一些动物保护主义者认为，大自然中的野生老虎数量实在太少，一只都不能杀。还有的站在道德的立场上陈述自己的观点。去年，印度一名推特用户在一只食人虎被杀后在推特上写道：“恭喜人类，又杀害了一只老虎，又一个物种濒临灭绝。”另一位推友则哀叹道：“我们生活在一个残酷的社会，可怜的动物被宰杀，人类不愿捕捉它们来显示其仁爱。”
Banait believes that tigers definitively proven to be man-eaters – and with all other options for saving them exhausted – should be killed. “Being a doctor, my first responsibility is to protect human beings,” he says. But he sets the bar high for definitively assigning the label of man-eater, such as comparative DNA analyses attributing multiple kills to a particular animal (a single kill, or sporadic kills, he says, could be the result of accidental, chance encounters, not intentional predation). Ullas points out, though, that gathering DNA evidence requires a level of skill that often does not exist in the countryside, and that other forensic and ecological evidence can suffice for pinning kills to a particular tiger. Ultimately, Ullas says, public safety must come first: “This is not some OJ Simpson trial, where the tiger must be assumed to be innocent until proven guilty.”
巴纳特认为，如果某些老虎已确实证明会吃人，在穷尽一切拯救老虎的办法后，应该将这些老虎处死。他说：“我是一名医生，我的首要职责是保护人类。”但是，他为最终界定是否为吃人老虎定了很高的标准，例如，要经过DNA的分析比对，确定某只老虎曾多次吃人，这只老虎才可定性为应该处死的吃人虎。他说，只一次吃人或偶尔吃人，可能是偶然事件，或人虎偶然遭遇的结果，而不是老虎蓄意攻击人类。不过，卡兰西指出，收集DNA证据需要一定的技能，而这并非是印度农村能具备的技能，而实际只需法医和生态学证据就足以指出某只老虎应该被处死。卡兰西最后说，必须首先考虑人类的公共安全，“这不是辛普森杀妻案的审判，不能认为在老虎被定有罪之前，先假定其是无辜的。”
If the government does not provide a timely solution, however, local people will devise their own. They may poison all tigers in their area, or they may trap the cats and beat them to death. According to Jose Louies, chief of the wildlife crime control division at the Wildlife Trust of India, professional poachers also take advantage of such situations. Tiger bones, claws, teeth, penises and fur destined for China fetch high prices on the black market, so poachers are happy to take care of problem animals for rural Indians.
如果政府不能及时提供解决方案，当地村民将自行设发除掉老虎。他们可能毒死村庄附近的所有老虎，或者设陷阱诱捕然后打死。据印度野生动物信托基金会野生动物犯罪控制部门负责人约瑟‧路易斯（Jose Louies）称，职业偷猎者也会利用这种情况。因为销往中国的虎骨、虎爪、虎牙、虎鞭和虎皮在黑市上卖得很贵，所以偷猎者很乐意为印度农村人解决这些会吃人的猛兽。
“Those who lose cattle to tigers, they’ll definitely employ poachers,” Louies says. “Poachers may also pay money to people to keep silent and allow them to take care of the problem and make a profit.”
路易斯说：“那些家里牲畜被老虎吃掉的农民，肯定会雇佣偷猎者杀虎。偷猎者还可以花钱让村民默许他们来解决老虎，从中获利。”
In the worst cases, tiger incidents become release valves for years of economic and social frustrations. Communities turn against conservation efforts and violent mobs form, sometimes incited by timber poachers or other wildlife criminals who hope to weaken the forest department. “I fear mobs more than tigers,” says AT Poovaihah, a deputy conservator of forests who once ended up in hospital after an encounter with a mob. “It’s all men, some of whom are drunk, and all of whom are angry. They know we’re doing something to capture the animal, but even then, they still want to charge us.”
如果形势恶化，老虎不断伤害人畜，就会引爆农民因经济和社会挫折而酝酿多年的愤怒。村民开始反对动物保育工作，就会发生暴力事件。有些暴力事件是由偷伐木材或偷猎野生动物的罪犯煽动的，希望以此削弱森林部门对国家公园的监管。森林副管理员普瓦伊哈（Poovaihah）说：“我更害怕的是暴徒，而不是老虎。全班男人，有些人喝醉了，所有人都怒气冲天。他们知道我们正在设法捕获这只老虎，但他们仍然想攻击我们。”普瓦伊哈有次与暴徒发生冲突后受伤住进医院。
In 2013, for example, Shivamallappa Basappa, a farmer in south-western India, was killed and partially eaten by a tiger while grazing his cows on the edge of Bandipur Tiger Reserve Karnataka State. He was the third tiger victim in the span of just two weeks, and many people had reached their breaking point. A mob of some 200 men quickly formed. By the time reinforcements arrived at 01:00, the crowd had burned down the local forest department’s headquarters and set fire to a government jeep.
例如，2013年，印度西南部一位农民西瓦马拉帕‧巴沙帕（Shivamallappa Basappa）在卡纳塔克邦（Karnataka State）的邦迪普尔老虎保护区（Bandipur Tiger Reserve）边缘放牛时被老虎杀死，被吃掉了身体一部分。他是短短两周内第三个老虎受害者。许多人已经到了崩溃的边缘，事发后立刻聚集起大约200人的暴民攻击当地森林部门。当政府增援人士在凌晨一点到达时，人群已经烧毁了森林部门的总部，并点燃了一辆政府吉普车。
“We have lived in this place for 60 years, and ever since the beginning, we’ve never had a moment of peace from these wild animals,” says Shanthamurthy Devappa, a relative of Basappa’s, who says he did not take part in the violence himself. “We’ve continually been harassed and bothered by wildlife, and we got angry for that reason. It was the accumulated anger of many years.”
死者的一位亲戚沙塔穆尔蒂·德瓦帕（Shanthamurthy Devappa）说他本人没有参加暴动，但一样愤怒不已，“我们在这里生活了60年，从头到尾，我们一直受到这些野兽的干扰，未得到过片刻的安宁。我们不断受到野兽的攻击和骚扰，为此我们很生气。这是多年积累的愤怒。”
#JusticeForAvni
为老虎安妮伸张正义（#JusticeForAvni）
Perhaps no case better epitomises the problems surrounding man-eaters than the story of T-1, a headline-making tigress shot in November 2018 after a two-year killing spree. By the time T1’s dramatic story finally ended, at least 13 people had lost their lives and thousands of others had been terrorised.
或许没有任何一个个案像母虎T-1（也被称为老虎安妮Avni）的故事更能说明处置杀人虎问题是如何的棘手。在经历了两年的疯狂杀戮之后，2018年11月T-1成为了头条新闻。母虎T1的戏剧性故事终于了结时，至少已有13人丧生，数千人一度生活在惊恐中。
In 2015, T-1 began turning up on camera traps in Pandarkhawa in Maharashtra State, a gently undulating landscape of pastures, agricultural fields and forest patches in central India. She preyed on livestock, and soon made her first human kill, a 60-year-old woman found dead in her field with deep slashes in her back. Three months later, T-1 killed a man – and then another the very next day.
2015年，T-1开始出现在马哈拉施特拉邦（Maharashtra State）的潘达哈瓦（Pandarkhawa）野外的相机陷阱中。这是印度中部一个地势起伏平缓，草原、农田和森林交错的原野。T-1在此猎食家畜，并很快杀死了她的第一个人类猎物，一名60岁的妇女被发现死在她的田地里，背部有很深的抓痕。三个月后，T-1再次杀了一个人，接着在第二天又杀了一个。
Fearing blowback in India’s cities, the region’s chief wildlife warden issued an order to capture T-1, but not to kill her. India is home to a growing, powerful animal rights movement, “an extreme version of Western animal welfarism superimposed on the Hindu ethos”, as Ullas characterises it. The movement emerged in the 1990s amidst increasing wealth in urban areas, when “300 million people suddenly had more time to think of things other than just making a living”, Ullas says.
由于担心在印度城市里会引起反弹，该地区的野生动物保护负责人发布了一项命令，要求抓捕T-1，但不能杀死她。印度拥有一个日益壮大的动物权利运动，正如卡兰西所描述的那样，这是“西方动物权益主义叠加在印度精神之上的一个极端版本”。这场运动兴起于20世纪90年代，当时城市地区的财富不断增加，用卡兰西的话来说，“3亿人突然有了更多的时间思考谋生以外的事情。”
Banait – whose love of wildlife was instilled during childhood visits to the countryside with his physician parents – classifies the movement differently: “We are trying our level best to try and put our voices forward to the government so they listen to us. They should provide animals with more safety and with more dignity.”
巴纳特对野生动物的热爱是童年时期随医生父母下乡给人治病时受父母教诲而养成。他对这一运动有不同的定义，“我们正在尽最大努力，把我们的声音传达给政府，让他们能够听见。政府应该为动物提供更多的安全和尊严。”
Even if authorities do manage to capture a man-eating tiger alive, they then face the question of what to do with it. Relocating it to a different forest only moves the problem. In 2014, for example, officials and amateur naturalists captured a young man-eater near Bhadra Tiger Reserve and released him – against Ullas’s advice – in a forest some 280km (174 miles) away. Three weeks later, following a streak of livestock attacks, the tiger killed a pregnant woman.
即使当局成功地活捉了一只吃人的老虎，接着就会面临如何处置的棘手难题。把吃人虎转移到另一个森林野放只是把问题转移到他处。例如，2014年，政府官员和业余博物学家在巴德拉老虎保护区（Bhadra Tiger Reserve）附近捕获了一只年轻的食人虎，不顾卡兰西的建议，将其放生到280公里（174英里）外的森林里。结果三周后，老虎在接连袭击农民牲畜后，杀死了一名孕妇。
As for keeping captured tigers in captivity, India’s zoos are full and other facilities are lacking – and all promise a dismal existence for a once-wild predator. “Any person who knows wildlife and these creatures knows it’s such a sad thing to see them in captivity,” says Poonam H. Dhanwatey, co-founder of the Tiger Research and Conservation Trust, a non-profit organisation in Maharashtra. “What’s the quality of life you’re giving them, and is it fair to put them in small cages once you remove them from freedom?”
至于圈养被捕获的老虎也有问题，印度的动物园早已兽满为患，其他设施也很匮乏，所有这些都预示着曾经在野外自由捕食的老虎一旦圈养，余生将惨淡度日。马哈拉施特拉邦非盈利组织老虎研究与保护信托基金会（Tiger Research and Conservation Trust）的联合创始人普南姆·H·丹瓦蒂（Poonam H. Dhanwatey）说：“任何了解野生动物和老虎的人都知道，他们无法忍心看到老虎被圈养在笼子里。你会给老虎的生活质量如何？你剥夺老虎的自由，把他们关进小笼子，这样做公平吗？”
T-1, however, seemed especially savvy at avoiding capture. She ignored baited traps and evaded search parties deployed into the forest to catch her. After she made her seventh kill – a 20-year-old man – communities’ trust in the government was broken, their patience exhausted. People barred officials from entering their villages or even examining victims’ bodies, and a mob beat up several forest guards.
然而，T-1似乎特别善于逃过追捕。她不会受陷阱的诱饵所惑，也能躲避派到森林里的搜捕队。在T-1第七次杀人之后，这次受害者是一个20岁的男人，当地村庄不再信任政府，他们的忍耐已到极限。村民禁止官员进入他们的村庄，甚至不准官员来检查受害者的尸体。一群暴徒还殴打了几名森林警卫。
Violence would have likely escalated from there were it not for the efforts of Abharna Maheshwaram, a deputy conservator of forests in the Maharashtra Forest Department. She had a hunch that female officers would be better at keeping the peace than male ones, so she sent 18 of her female colleagues to affected villages wearing civilian clothes. They only revealed their identity as forest guards after earning the trust of the local women. The strategy worked: communities’ faith in the forest department was restored and they once again began cooperating with officials.
如果不是马哈拉施特拉邦森林部门的森林副管理员阿布哈娜‧马赫西瓦纳（Abharna Maheshwaram）的努力，暴力可能会进一步恶化。她有一种直觉，女性官员应该比男性官员更善于维持和平，所以她派了18名女性同事穿着便服前往受害人的村庄。赢得当地妇女的信任后，她们才公开了自己森林守卫的身份。这个策略奏效，村庄恢复对森林部门的信任，再次与官员合作。
“One thing I learned from T-1 is that whenever there is a human-animal conflict, it is not only about the animal, it’s also all about the community with whom you’re working,” Abharna says. “I personally believe that involving communities is the solution for conservation in the country.”
阿布哈娜说：“我从老虎T-1吃人事件学到的一件事是，无论何时发生人与动物的冲突，这不仅与动物有关，也与你所工作的乡村有关。我个人认为，让村民参与是解决这个国家环境保护问题的办法。”
Gains on the local level were hampered, however, by the ongoing legal, political and social battle that was waging across India’s cities over T-1’s fate. In February 2018 – with nine victims now attributed to the man-eating tiger – the Bombay High Court stayed an order to shoot T-1. Efforts to capture her, including through use of thermal drones, hunting dogs and a paraglider, became increasingly desperate. T-1, meanwhile, became a mother, and her two cubs began joining her on human hunts.
然而，在地方一级取得的进展却在全印度的城市受到了阻碍，因为此时印度各城市正在展开一场关怀T-1命运的法律、政治和社会方面的斗争。2018年2月，孟买高等法院维持了射杀T-1的法律命令，此时据称已有9人死于这个杀人母虎。当局使用热成像无人机、猎狗和滑翔伞等各种手段欲抓捕T-1，但活捉的努力变得越来越无望。而这时，T-1已当了母亲，她的两个幼崽加入她捕食的行动。
In August, T-1 claimed three human lives in the span of just 24 days. When the government issued a new order to capture her and her cubs and, failing that, to shoot her, Banait sought an intervention through India’s Supreme Court. “When you’re giving capital punishment – shoot-on-sight for an animal – there needs to be proper legal justification for these actions,” Banait says.
到8月，T-1在24天内的时间再夺去了3人的生命。这时政府发布了一项新命令，要求捕获T-1及其幼虎，如捕获失败，即可射杀，但巴纳特递状向印度最高法院寻求干预。巴纳特说：“当你要对一只动物执行死刑时，必须有正当的法律依据。”
The ongoing chaos, Ullas says, also contributed to the government’s decision to permit Shafath Ali Khan, a private freelance hunter, to take part in T-1’s capture. Khan’s son, Asghar Ali Khan, who was not permitted to join the hunt, also came along. The Khans are among a dozen wealthy, self-described maharaja who have made careers out of offering sharp-shooting services for high-profile problem animals, Ullas says, but their widely publicised involvement in governmental hunts fuels the flames of outrage among animal welfare advocates and undermines local officials’ authority. “We have 80,000 forest guards, quite a few of whom are excellent marksmen,” he says. “There is absolutely no need for these glory-seeking guys.”
卡兰西说，久捕不获的混乱促使政府决定允许一位私家猎人沙法特·阿里·汗（Shafath Ali Khan）参与抓捕。这位猎人的儿子阿斯加尔·阿里·汗（Asghar Ali Khan）也跟随而来，但被禁止参加猎捕。卡兰西说，阿里‧汗父子和其他十几位自称“王公”的富豪，都是职业猎人，以他们精准的射击技能常受雇于政府捕捉闯出大祸的猛兽，但他们参与政府下令的捕作行动被媒体大幅报道后，使得动物权益维护者更为愤怒，也使得地方官员的权威受到伤害。卡兰西说：“我们有8万名森林卫士，其中不少都是优秀的射手，完全没有必要找来这些追名逐利的家伙。”
On November 2, Khan’s son, Asghar, was finishing dinner when he received a call reporting a tiger sighting on a nearby road. Without informing his father’s government counterparts, he and several colleagues grabbed their guns and headed out. From their vehicle they soon spotted T-1, identifiable by a tell-tale “trident” marking on her side. According to Asghar’s widely reported account, one of his colleagues shot the tiger with a tranquiliser dart, causing the enraged cat to charge. Asghar – allegedly in self-defence, but sitting within his vehicle – fired on T-1 with a rifle. She died almost instantly.
11月2日，阿里‧汗的儿子阿斯加尔（Asghar）在吃完晚饭的时候接到一个电话，说在附近的路上看到了一只老虎。没有通知他父亲的政府同僚，阿斯加尔和几名同事抓起枪就冲了出去。他们坐在车中很快发现了T-1，因她的侧面有一个明显的“三叉戟”虎纹标记。根据被广泛报道的阿斯加尔之说法，他的一个同事先用麻醉镖枪射中这只老虎，但被若怒的大猫向车子扑了上去。当时阿斯加尔坐在车里，据称是出于自卫，他用步枪向T-1开火。母虎迅即丧命。
“The hunter always wanted to kill her, and he disrupted the entire operations,” Banait says. “The process in which they killed Avni was very out of the box, with many irregularities and violations of the law.”
巴纳特说：“这个猎人一直想的就是杀了她，不是捕获。他破坏了整个行动。他们杀害安妮过程不合程序，有许多违规和违法之处。”
T-1’s death sparked very different reactions. In Maharashtra, villagers celebrated with firecrackers; in cities, protestors held candlelight vigils. Maneka Gandhi, a politician, animal rights activist and widow of Indira Gandhi’s son, tweeted to her 200,000 followers that Avni had been “brutally murdered” and that her killing was “patently illegal”. She tagged her posts with the widely trending #JusticeForAvni (Gandhi declined an interview request for this story).
T-1之死引发了非常不同的反应。在马哈拉施特拉邦，村民燃放鞭炮庆祝，但在城市，抗议者举行烛光哀悼。政治家、动物权利活动家、甘地夫人之子的遗孀马尼卡·甘地在推特上向她的20万名追随者表示，安妮已被“残忍杀害”，她的遇害“显然是非法的”。她在自己的帖子上贴上了广受欢迎的“为老虎安妮伸张正义”（#JusticeForAvni）的主题标签，不过马尼卡‧甘地拒绝了这个故事的采访请求。
Advocates soon began accusing the Khans of tampering with evidence and questioned whether T-1 had in fact charged the car – an aberrant behavior for a tiger, which usually reacts to a dart as it would something as minor a bee sting. Forensic analysis of the tiger’s wounds later confirmed that she had been shot from the side, likely while crossing the road and certainly not while charging. The tranquilising dart recovered from her thigh also appeared to have been put in place after she was killed. Ultimately, no-one was punished.
动物权益维护者随即开始指责阿里‧汗父子篡改证据，并质疑T-1是否真的被激怒而攻击阿斯加尔的越野车，因为这对老虎来说是一种反常的行为，因为麻醉枪射出的飞镖，对老虎来说就像被轻微的蜜蜂蜇刺了一样。随后，对老虎伤口的法医分析证实，这只老虎很可能是在过马路时从侧面被射杀毙命，而不是在扑向汽车时正面中弹。而且还发现在老虎大腿上找到的麻醉飞镖似乎也是被射杀后补上的。但最终，没有人受到惩罚。
T-1’s story made headlines around the world, but as Ullas points out, India has had many tiger cases that are “similarly absurd, similarly comic and similarly tragic”. The entire fiasco and many of the lives it cost could have been avoided, he says, if the government had simply given the order to shoot to begin with.
T-1的故事登上了世界各地的新闻头条，但正如卡兰西所指出的，印度有许多老虎案例“同样荒谬，同样滑稽，同样悲惨”。他说，如果政府一开始就直接下命射杀，那么以惨败收场的整件事和许多为此付出的生命本来是可以避免的。
From 3,000 to 15,000
从3000到15000只
Eliminating man-eaters is the most important factor for retaining social tolerance for tigers, but it’s not the only requirement. India also needs to ensure families are quickly compensated for their losses. The government mandates that tiger victims’ relatives receive 500,000 rupees (around $7,200/£5,580) and that livestock killed by predators are reimbursed as well. But this doesn’t always happen.
除掉食人虎是保持社会宽容对待老虎的最重要因素，但这不是唯一的要求。印度还需要确保受害家庭迅速得到补偿。政府规定老虎受害者的亲属可以得到赔偿50万卢比（约7200美元/ 5580英镑），被老虎杀死的牲畜也可以得到补偿。但实际上受害农民并非都能得到赔偿。
After Gopamma’s husband was killed, she says, the junior official she approached for help assured her she would receive compensation. “I was naive to have believed him,” she says. A higher-up official soon countered that since her husband had been trespassing in the forest when he was killed, she would not be receiving any compensatory funds after all. With no other option, she took out a loan with an exorbitant 60% annual interest rate. “I had hoped some compensation would come, but because I’m poor, I accepted my fate,” she says. “I felt totally powerless.”
格帕玛说，丈夫被老虎杀死后，她寻求帮助的一位下级官员向她保证，她会得到赔偿，但“我太天真了，竟然相信了他。”一位高级官员很快出面反驳说，因为她的丈夫是非法进入森林被杀，她根本不会得到任何赔偿。走投无路之下，格帕玛借了一笔年利率高达60%的高利贷。她说：“我本来希望能得到一些补偿，但因为我穷，我接受了自己的命运。我感到完全无能为力。”
Livestock predation by tigers can also be devastating for a family making just $700 (£542) or so a year, and these impacts are much more common than human deaths. Yet in a survey of 1,370 villages in the Western Ghats, Krithi Karanth found that only 31% of people who were entitled to compensation for losses due to human-wildlife conflict were actually getting it. In interviews, she learned that people struggled with confusing paperwork and that they lacked the time or means to make multiple visits the local government office to apply. Some were also deliberately denied or asked to give bribes. “There were problems with corruption in the system and with people getting the bureaucratic run-around,” Krithi says.
对于一个年收入只有700美元（542英镑）左右的家庭来说，牲畜被老虎吃掉可能是毁灭性的，而且老虎攻击家畜比吃人事件更为普遍。然而，克里西·卡兰西对印度西高止山脉地区1370个村庄的调查发现，只有31%的受害人因人类与野生动物冲突造成损失而获得赔偿。在采访中，她了解到，受害家庭要疲于应付令人困惑的繁琐文书，也没有时间或方法多次前往当地政府办公室申请赔偿。甚至有些人还被故意拒绝或被索贿。克里西·卡兰西说：“体制内有腐败问题，人们受到官僚主义的刁难。”
In 2015, Krithi and her colleagues at the Centre for Wildlife Studies launched WildSeve, a service that acts as a go-between for people impacted by animals and the government. People call WildSeve’s toll free number to report an incident. An inspector soon arrives to document the case using an open-source mobile data kit and takes care of the paperwork. WildSeve now serves half a million people in 600 villages and has filed more than 14,000 cases on their behalf. Processing time for a given claim previously averaged 277 days, but claims are now paid out within 60 days.
2015年，克里西和她野生动物研究中心的同事们推出了一项名为WildSeve的服务，专帮助受老虎之害的家庭与政府机关协调联络。虎害事件发生后，人们可拨打WildSeve的免费电话报告，随即就会有检查员到场用一个开源的移动数据包记录此个案，并负责有关文书工作。WildSeve现在为600个村庄的50万人提供服务，已经为他们提交了超过14000个赔偿申请。过去处理一项索赔申请平均需要277天，但现在在60天内就可以获得赔偿。
WildSeve delivers a host of other services as well, from providing individuals who suffer repeat livestock losses with materials to build tiger-proof sheds, to launching a wildlife education program that reached 3,000 children last year. “I’m a huge optimist,” Krithi says. “Practical interventions will go a long way to build support for wildlife.”
WildSeve还提供许多其他服务，比如为家中牲畜反复遭到老虎攻击的农户提供建造防虎棚的材料。去年WildSeve还开展了向3000名儿童进行野生动物教育的计划。克里西说：“我是个超级乐观主义者。帮助野生动物切实可行的干预措施还需要很长时间才能见效。”
But Krithi’s programme, while quickly growing, is for now still confined to a small section of Karnataka. In other parts of the state and country, human-wildlife conflict continues to breed dissatisfaction. People are becoming resistant to the idea of more tigers. Krithi and her father believe there is still time to stop the social tides from changing, however, and to restore tigers to even greater heights – if only India decides to truly make the species a priority.
虽然克里西的WilSeve计划发展快速，收效很大，但目前仍局限于卡纳塔克邦的一小部分地区。在印度全国和卡纳塔克邦的其他地区，人虎之间的冲突还在继续引发农民的愤怒不满。农民开始对增加老虎数量的想法十分抗拒。不过克里西和她的父亲相信，还有时间改变这个趋势，只要印度全国决心真正重视老虎这个物种的生存，老虎数量甚至有希望恢复到过往较高的水平。
Based on the results of government surveys, Ullas calculates that tigers occupy just 10 to 15% of India’s 300,000 square kilometres of currently available potential habitat, and over the past 20 years, their numbers have plateaued at about 3,000 individuals. This population trajectory runs contrary to a July press release, in which India’s government claimed that the country’s tiger population has increased by 6% annually since 2006. “In spite of the challenges India faces as a developing country, we have done a wonderful job,” says Nayak at the National Tiger Conservation Authority. “It’s been a steady increase since 2006.”
卡兰西根据政府的调查结果，计算出印度现有30万平方公里的土地可作为老虎的栖息地，但实际划出给老虎的栖息地面积只占到这个30万平方公里的10%到15%，在过去的20年里，老虎的数量稳定在3000只左右，无增无减。这一老虎数量的增长轨迹与7月份政府发表的一份新闻稿有出入。印度政府声称，自2006年以来，该国老虎数量每年增长6%。国家老虎保护管理局的纳雅克（Nayak）说：“尽管印度是一个发展中国家，面临这样艰巨的保育任务，但我们的工作做得非常出色，2006年以来一直在稳步增长。”
Ullas, however, calls the methodology behind the findings “deeply flawed”, and adds that the government has prevented any outside scientific review of its data and analyses for the past 15 years. A paper published in November 2019 in Conservation Science and Practice also concludes that India’s tiger monitoring program is “unreliable”, suffers from “a lack of transparency” and that its results are “not backed by reliable scientific evidence”.
然而，卡兰西称政府的调查发现使用的方法“存在严重缺陷”。他补充说，政府在过去15年一直阻止外部对其数据和分析做科学审查。发表在《保护科学与实践》（Conservation Sciencand Practice）期刊2019年11月号上的一篇论文其结论也说，印度政府的老虎监测计划“缺乏透明”，因而“不可靠”，其监察结果“没有可靠的科学证据支持”。
Nayak counters that the methods are sound, and that “a lot of people have been engaged in this process”, including three outside experts from the US, UK and Australia “who have already examined all the aspects and said that yes, we’ve been doing a wonderful job”.
但纳雅克反驳说，政府使用的方法是合理的，“很多人参与了这个过程”，还包括来自美国、英国和澳大利亚的三名外国专家，“他们已经检查了所有方面的资料，并说，是的，我们做得很好。”
James Nichols, an emeritus scientist at the United States Geological Survey who specialises in animal population dynamics and management, and who collaborated with Ullas for 25 years to develop tiger sampling methods, agrees that the raw data and methodological details that the government used to arrive at its findings “should be published somewhere to permit scrutiny by methodological experts”.
美国地质调查局退休科学家詹姆斯·尼科尔斯（James Nichols）的专长是研究动物的种群动态和管理，他与卡兰西合作25年，设计了一套老虎抽样调查的方法。他同意卡兰西之说，认为印度政府用于调查老虎的原始数据和方法细节，都应该公之于众，让专精于科学方法的专家予以审查。
So while “India has done far more and far better with tigers than any other country”, Ullas says, he believes the picture on the ground is less rosy than politicians would lead the public to believe. “We’ve yet to achieve our full potential.”
因此，卡兰西说，尽管“印度在老虎问题上比其他任何国家做得都多，做得都好得多”，但他相信，实际情况并不像政客们让公众相信的那样乐观。“我们还没有充分发挥潜力。”
India, he continues, is at a cross-road. It can resign itself to a small, limited number of big cats, or it can become one of the world’s most stunning conservation success stories by allowing its tiger population to grow to 10,000 or even 15,000 animals. The country has the money needed to realise this dream, and as ever more people choose to move from the countryside into cities, it also has the space.
他接着说，印度正处在一个十字路口，可以无所作为，满足于有限而且数量很小的现有老虎头数，也可以力争成为全球最令人震惊的野生动物成功保育国家之一，让老虎的数量增长到1万只，甚至1.5万只。印度有实现这一梦想所需的资金，而且随着越来越多的人选择从农村移民城市，印度也有容纳这么多老虎的空间。
For now, however, this is not a governmental goal. “I think the [tiger] numbers can increase, but to what extent is very difficult to say at this time,” Nayak says. “We have 2,900 tigers – and increasing – but we still have a lot of difficulties with tigers straying into human-dominated landscapes in certain parts of India and creating a lot of problems.”
然而，就目前而言，这还不是印度政府的目标。纳雅克说：“我认为老虎的数量还会增加，但目前很难预测会增加到什么程度。我们有2900只老虎，而且数量还在增加，但在印度某些地区，老虎会误闯入人类聚居的乡村地区，造成很多问题，我们仍然有很多挑战。”
India is one of the world’s most biologically diverse nations, but it sets aside less than 5% of its land for wildlife – compared to the 15% set aside by the US and China. Prakash Javadekar, India’s minister of environment, forest and climate change, did not respond to interview requests for this story.
印度是全球世界生物多样性最丰富的国家之一，但只划出了不到5%的土地供野生动物生养繁殖，而美国和中国则划出了15%的土地。对此问题，印度环境森林和气候变化部长普拉卡什‧雅瓦德卡尔（Prakash Javadekar）没有回复记者的采访请求。
Ullas questions whether the government has the political will to step up its conservation commitments. But while discouraging, he points to India’s past as proof that things can quickly and unexpectedly change for the good.
卡兰西质疑政府是否有政治意愿实现其保育动物的承诺。虽然现实令人沮丧，但他指出，印度的过去证明，事情可以迅速和出乎意料地向好的方向发展。
“I could have never predicted in the 1970s, when I saw the last tigers shot and paraded, that India would once again have wild tigers,” he says. “These things come in stages. Suddenly something will change, and when it does, we have so many things going in our favour.”
他说：“20世纪70年代，当我看到最后一批老虎被射杀和展示于众时，我绝对没有想到印度会再次出现野生老虎。这些事情是阶段性地发展。突然之间，有些事情会发生变化，而当出现变化之时，很多事情的发展都有利于我们。”