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These people are on a pilgrimage.
这些人都在朝圣。
They're in one of the most remote parts of the United States, to see something spectacular that happens every year.
他们所到的地方是美国最偏远的地区之一，为的是观看一场一年一度的壮举。
An icon of the American West.
观看美国西部的一大盛景。
This is a sage grouse.
这是一只艾草松鸡。
And this is its mating dance.
它在跳求偶舞。
The sage grouse once numbered in the millions across this entire region.
曾经，该地区有着数百万只艾草松鸡。
But today, they are on the verge of endangerment. And the area they live on has shrunk by half.
如今，它们的栖地缩减了一半，已经到了濒危的边缘。
That's a problem.
这就麻烦了。
And not just because it's fun to look at.
不仅是因为这些鸡长得好看。
It's because the sage grouse is actually really important.
也是因为它们是非常重要的一个物种。
And to understand why, you have to understand its dance.
要弄明白这里面的原委，就要先了解了解它的舞蹈。
This is a female sage grouse.
这是一只雌性艾草松鸡。
And this is a male sage grouse.
这是一只雄性艾草松鸡。
During mating season, it's big and flamboyant looking, all so that it can attract mates.
到了交配的季节，雄性艾草松鸡会展现出魁梧而艳丽的身姿，这一切都是为了吸引雌性与其交配。
It's sort of like a peacock in that way.
有点像求偶的孔雀。
The spiky tail, the puffed out chest — they don't serve a clear function except to be attractive.
雄鸡那尖尖的尾巴，鼓鼓的胸膛——除了吸引异性之外，并无明确的作用。
These white feathers on its chest are rough and spiky.
雄鸡胸部的这些白色羽毛粗糙而尖锐。
And for the first step of its dance, the sage-grouse takes a deep breath and it swishes its wings against those spiky feathers.
求偶舞的第一步便是深吸一口气，用翅膀拍打那些尖尖的羽毛。
It sounds like this this.
听起来是这种效果。
These yellow things are its vocal sac.
这些黄色的东西是它的声囊。
It's actually one esophagus with a strong muscle in the center.
艾草松鸡的声囊实际上是一个食道，只不过中间有一块结实的肌肉。
When the sage grouse takes in a gulp of air, it contracts.
雄鸡吸气时，声囊就会收缩。
When it breathes out, the vocal sac pops.
呼气时，声囊会发出“嘭”的一声。
That sounds like this.
听起来是这样。
Female sage grouse can hear these sounds from up to two miles away.
其声之大，两英里外的雌鸡都能听见。
And then it's a competition.
其次便是竞争。
The strongest male dancers crowd out the weaker ones.
只有最强壮的雄鸡才能淘汰所有竞争者。
The winner gets to mate with most of the females.
得到与大多数雌鸡交配的机会。
After they mate, the females go up to ten miles away to nest.
交配结束后，雌鸡会选个地方筑巢，有时甚至会把巢穴筑在距离交配地10英里远的地方。
But this arena, where the competition goes down, that place stays the same every year.
尽管如此，年复一年，这个竞技场，这个竞争上演的地方却并未变化。
Sage grouse live across this whole vast area.
这片广阔的土地都是艾草松鸡生活的地方。
But year after year, they each come back to do the courtship ritual in the same exact spot: One of these blue dots.
但年复一年，它们都会回到同一地点，也即这些蓝点之中的一个点求偶。
It's why sage-grouse watchers always know where to find them.
这也是为什么艾草松鸡观察者总是知道去哪儿找它们的原因。
That mating area is called a lek.
这个交配的地区叫“求偶场”。
And it's a big part of why sage grouse matter so much.
这也是艾草松鸡之所以如此重要的一大原因。
Coming back to the same place every year means that sage grouse are really easy to keep track of.
艾草松鸡每年都会回到同一地方求偶意味着追踪它们也就变得容易了。
Some leks have been monitored by researchers for more than 75 years.
一些求偶场研究人员已经对其监测75年有余了。
They're so easy to count that conservationists consider them an indicator species.
由于清点它们的数量非常容易，环保主义者便将它们视为一大指示物种。
That means they use the number of sage grouse as a sort of proxy for how healthy the entire sagebrush ecosystem is.
意思就是他们会将艾草松鸡的数量作为衡量整个地区的生态系统是否健康的一大指标。
If sage grouse are doing well, there's a good chance that elk, and pygmy rabbits, and the 350 plant and animal species in the region are doing okay too.
如果艾草松鸡种群状态良好，那么麋鹿、侏儒兔以及该地区的350种动植物很有可能都生活地很好。
That also means that if you want to protect wildlife in the American West, figuring out how to protect the sage grouse is a good strategy.
这也意味着，如果你想保护美国西部的野生动物，一个不错的策略就是研究如何保护艾草松鸡。
In 2008, Wyoming implemented a new policy aimed at protecting the bird.
2008年，怀俄明州推出了保护这种鸟类的一项新政策。
It ended up also having major benefits for another animal — the mule deer.
结果，另一种动物——骡鹿也跟着沾了不少光。
But because sage grouse are so easy to count, we also know that they are in trouble.
然而，因为艾草松鸡的数量清点起来很容易，我们也发现，它们已经陷入了困境。
The lek is where the sage grouse mates, but it's just the epicenter of a much larger range where they live.
求偶场是艾草松鸡交配的地方，但它只是一个中心，艾草松鸡实际活动的范围比求偶场大得多。
And in order for them to keep coming back to the lek to reproduce, sage grouse need the entire range to be undisturbed.
要想让它们继续回到求偶场繁殖，就要保证求偶场所在的整个地区都不能受到打扰。
That means if human activity alters this range, they tend to not return to the lek — they don't reproduce.
换句话说，如果人类活动改变了那个区域，它们一般就不会再去那里——也就不会繁殖了。
Montana started keeping track of sage grouse leks in 2002.
2002年，蒙大拿州开始追踪艾草松鸡的求偶场。
Since then, their population in the state has fallen by nearly half.
从那以后，该州艾草松鸡的数量几乎缩减了一半。
There are a lot of reasons for this decline — invasive plant species, wildfires, but a big one is drilling and mining.
缩减的原因有很多——外来植物的入侵、野火，但最主要的原因是钻探和采矿。
"Western states have increased production dramatically in recent years."
“近年来，西部各州的产量有了大幅提升。”
"A huge amount of new oil."
“新开采了大量石油。”
"Oil, coal, and natural gas dominates the landscape and the economy."
“石油、煤炭和天然气成了当地的主打风景线，也成了当地经济的命脉。”
Wyoming has the most sage grouse of any state.
怀俄明州是美国各州中艾草松鸡最多的州。
Here's a map of leks in Wyoming.
这是怀俄明州艾草松鸡求偶场的分布图。
And these are oil and gas fields.
这些是当地的油气田的分布图。
In 2015, governors from four states announced a plan with the federal government to protect the sage grouse.
2015年，（科罗拉多，蒙大拿，怀俄明和内华达）四州的州长与联邦政府共同宣布了一项保护艾草松鸡的计划。
It banned mineral mining across ten million acres of sage grouse habitat.
该计划规定，禁止在幅员1000万英亩的艾草松鸡栖息地上采矿。
And it restricted oil and gas leasing in 13,000 square miles of the most critical habitat areas. land conservation effort
该计划还限制在最关键的，幅员1.3万平方英里的栖息地租借油气。
It was hailed as the largest conservation effort in US history.
该计划被誉为美国历史上最大力度的土地保护举措。
But today, Donald Trump's administration isn't enforcing the restrictions on oil and gas leasing.
然而，现在，唐纳德·特朗普政府放松了对石油和天然气租赁的限制。
And it canceled the ban on mining here.
还取消了禁止在此地采矿的禁令。
And the numbers reflect that: since he took office, oil and gas leasing on public land in the US has skyrocketed.
这些变化直接反映在了数字上：自他上任以来，美国公共土地上的石油和天然气开发面积急剧增长。
And on land the 2015 plan was supposed to protect, leasing has gone up tenfold.
就拿2015年那项保护计划所保护的土地上，租赁面积就增长了十倍。
Today, officials predict that sage grouse numbers will keep falling.
如今，官员们预测，艾草松鸡的数量还将继续下降。
The sage grouse is an indicator species.
艾草松鸡身为指示物种。
It means that the sage grouse can tell you a lot about the health of the entire sagebrush ecosystem, across the American West.
这就意味着，艾草松鸡能透露许多有关美国西部的各个艾草松鸡栖地的生态系统是否健康的很多信息。
But they can also indicate something about American policy.
还能反映出美国政策的一些问题。
About the power that fossil fuel and mining companies have over government.
反映出化石燃料公司和矿业公司对美国政府的影响力。
About what we choose to protect and what we don't.
反映出我们选择了保护什么，不保护什么。
