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Because the early hunter populations were comparatively small and the animal populations truly monumental
由于早期狩猎的人类相对较少，而动物的数量却十分庞大
as many as ten million mammoth carcasses are thought to lie frozen in the tundra of northern Siberia alone
据说仅在西伯利亚北部的冻原上就发现了多达1000万只猛犸的尸体一些权威认为，
some authorities think there must be other explanations, possibly involving climate change or some kind of pandemic.
大型动物的大规模灭绝一定还有别的原因，可能与气候变化或某些传染病流行有关。
As Ross MacPhee of the American Museum of Natural History put it
正如美国自然史博物馆的罗斯.麦克费所指出的那样
There's no material benefit to hunting dangerous animals more often than you need to—there are only so many mammoth steaks you can eat.
人们并不需要过于频繁地去捕杀危险动物——有那么多的猛犸排供你食用。
Others believe it may have been almost criminally easy to catch and clobber prey.
有的人认为也许与动物极易被捕获有关。
"In Australia and the Americas," says Tim Flannery, "the animals probably didn't know enough to run away."
“在澳大利亚和美洲，”提姆.弗兰纳里说，“动物很可能并不十分清楚应该跑得远远的。”
Some of the creatures that were lost were singularly spectacular and would take a little managing if they were still around.
在那些消失的动物中，有一些确实引入注目，如果它们依然生活在我们周围的话，得对它们稍加管束才是。
Imagine ground sloths that could look into an upstairs window, tortoises nearly the size of a small Fiat,
请想像一下这样的景象，地懒正在往楼上的窗户里瞅，乌龟几乎和小型菲亚特汽车一样大，
monitor lizards twenty feet long basking beside desert highways in Western Australia.
6米长的蜥蜴在西澳大利亚州公路旁的沙漠里晒太阳。
Alas, they are gone and we live on a much diminished planet.
哎，它们都一去不复运了，我们人类生活在一个很贫乏的星球上。
Today, across the whole world, only four types of really hefty (a metric ton or more) land animals survive: elephants, rhinos, hippos, and giraffes.
今天，全世界只有4种大型（重达1吨，甚至更重）陆地动物存活了下来：大象、犀牛、河马和长颈鹿。
Not for tens of millions of years has life on Earth been so diminutive and tame.
可是，在过去的数千万年的时间里，地球上的生命从来不像今天那样靛乏和温顺。
The question that arises is whether the disappearances of the Stone Age and disappearances of more recent times are in effect part of a single extinction event
问题是，大型动物在石器时代和近代的灭绝，是不是同一次火绝事件的组成部分
whether, in short, humans are inherently bad news for other living things.
简而言之，人类的出现对其他生命来说是不是一个坏消息？
The sad likelihood is that we may well be.
令人可悲的是，很可能就是。
