联邦政府采用电脑芯片防止仙人掌盗贼

Story Highlights
·In latest theft 17 saguaros were dug up and stashed for transportation
·Saguaros are unique to the Sonoran Desert and can grow to 50 feet
·Microchips will aid in tracking down and identifying stolen saguaros
·Plant pilferers typically target the relatively young and small specimens

TUCSON, Arizona (AP) -- Anyone thinking of swiping a stately saguaro cactus from the desert could soon be hauling off more than just a giant plant.
亚利桑那塔科桑消息（AP）——如果你想从沙漠偷走一棵巨型仙人掌，很快，你拿走的将不再仅仅是一棵巨型植物本身。

Arizona National Park officials plan to microchip the state's signature saguaro cactus plants to deter thieves.
亚利桑那国家公园的官员计划将微型芯片植入该州标志性的巨型仙人掌中，防止被盗。

National Park Service officials plan to imbed microchips in Arizona's signature plant to protect them from thieves who rip them from the desert to sell them to landscapers, nurseries and homeowners.
国家公园管理处的官员正在计划将微型芯片植入亚利桑那州的标志性植物中，防止被盗，因为现在盗贼把这种植物从沙漠中盗走，转手卖给园林设计商、苗圃或家庭。

The primary objective is deterrence, but the chips also will aid in tracking down and identifying stolen saguaros, said Bob Love, chief ranger at southern Arizona's Saguaro National Park.
南亚利桑那仙人掌国家公园护林主任鲍勃·洛夫说，安装芯片主要是预防仙人掌被盗，但也可以帮助对被盗植物进行追踪。

"There's probably more of it that occurs than we're aware of," Love said.
“仙人掌被盗情况可能比我们知道得还要多，”洛夫说。

The largest theft at the park occurred last year, when 17 saguaros were dug up and stashed for transportation later. The culprits were caught, but Love said there have been other cases where three to five plants have been taken at a time.
公园最大的一起盗窃案发生在去年，有17棵巨型仙人掌被挖出、藏匿，准备过后运出，犯罪分子最后被抓获，不过，还有其他一次被盗三至五棵的案件发生，洛夫说。

Saguaros are unique to the Sonoran Desert, 120,000 square miles covering portions of Arizona, California and the northern Mexican states of Baja California and Sonora.
索诺兰沙漠方圆120,000平方英里，位于亚利桑那州、加利福尼亚州及墨西哥北部下加利福尼亚州和索诺兰州境内。巨型仙人掌是该地区独有的植物。

They're majestic giants that can grow to heights of 50 feet, sprout gaggles of arms and weigh several tons. They can take 50 years to flower and 70 years before sprouting an arm. And they help identify Arizona's landscape in everything from Roadrunner cartoons to the back of the state quarter.
这些巨型植物可以长到50英尺高，长出新的小仙人掌并重达数吨。它们五十年才开花，70年才长出一片新的小仙人掌。它们与亚利桑那的各种风景有关联，从走鹃卡通画到州区的后面。

A 2000 census of the two districts making up the Saguaro National Park outside Tucson estimated that there were 1.3 million saguaros there.
一份对两个地区的2000个统计组成了仙人掌国家公园，图森市之外估计约130万株仙人掌。

The number of saguaros statewide is anyone's guess. "How many stars are there in the sky?" said Jim McGinnis, who supervises the Arizona Department of Agriculture's office of special investigations and has been its chief "cactus cop" for years.
全州仙人掌的数量任何人都猜不出。 “天空中有多少星星？”Jim McGinnis说，他监管着亚利桑那农业部特别调查办公室，并多年来一直担任首席“仙人掌警察”。

Plant pilferers typically target the relatively young and small specimens in the 4- to 7-foot range -- which are probably 30 to 50 years old. Plants of that size typically fit in the bed of a pickup truck and can be covered with a tarp; bigger ones require heavy equipment to lift and larger vehicles to haul them.
盗贼通常把较幼小的仙人掌作为盗取目标，范围从4英尺到7英尺，它们大多数是30年到50年。这种型号的仙人掌通常被装入敞蓬小型载货卡车的底部，上面盖一层油布，大一点的需要重的装备来提升并需要大的车辆来拖它们。

They typically can fetch $1,000 or more
通常他们可以拿到1000美元或者更多。

"Saguaros are the plant that gets the most money," said McGinnis. "Everybody wants a saguaro in their front yard."
“仙人掌是一种可以赚到很多钱的植物，”McGinnis说，“每个人都想在前庭要一株仙人掌”

The officials at Saguaro National Park, a 91,000-acre park outside Tucson, are in the planning phase of the microchip project, said Love, the park ranger.
图森市外面91000英亩的仙人掌国家公园的官员正在微型芯片项目的设计阶段，公园护林员洛夫说道。

Under the program, a microchip like those implanted to identify dogs and other pets -- smaller than a dime -- would be inserted an inch deep into the plant with a large syringe.
在这个项目下，像植入狗和其它宠物体内的微型芯片——比一枚10分铸币要小的多——用一种大的注射器嵌入植物一英寸深。

Love said the microchips don't emit a signal. Instead, each is uniquely encoded, and waving a special wand within about a foot powers the chip to send back its code.
洛夫说微型芯片不会发出信号。取而代之的是，每一个都被独一无二的编码，在一英寸以内摇摆一根特殊的棒，给芯片能量使之送回它们的编码。

Love said it's common to see trucks carrying cactus on roads that intersect the park. "So if we saw something like that, we could momentarily stop them and wave these wands over them," he said.
洛夫说道在横穿公园的公路上通常能看到货车载着仙人掌。他说“如果我们看到这种情形，我们可以马上叫停他们，并用这些小棒在上面挥动以检测有没有仙人掌”。

Officials could also go to nurseries or landscape businesses that sell saguaros and wand their saguaros to see if they came from the park, "particularly if we knew that a theft had occurred and that the cactus had not been found," he said.
官员们同样可以去苗圃或者庭院设计交易的地方，那里出售仙人掌，并检测他们的仙人掌看看是否是公园里的，他说“特别是如果我们知道盗贼已经出现但是仙人掌还没找到的情况下。”

Love said the park wants the chipping program, but will have to go through a lengthy environmental compliance study to ensure the chips don't harm the plants themselves or create air quality, soil or endangered species issues.
洛夫说公园需要芯片项目，但是将经历一段环境遵从研究来确保芯片不会伤害植物本身或者产生大气质量，弄脏或灭绝物种等问题。

The microchips cost about $4 to $4.50 each. Wands or scanners to read them range from $500 to $2,500, Love said. Other costs to be factored in include labor needed to insert the chips and to monitor for cactus thefts.
微型芯片成本是每个4美元到4.5美元。可以读编码的探测装置或者扫描器的价格从500美元到2500美元不等，洛夫说道。其他的成本包括需要植入芯片和监视仙人掌盗贼的人力。

"We would likely not just go out and implant, but would gather data, GPS the locations, and record heights and widths and measures," Love said. "We probably wouldn't implant a plant that was not healthy or a desirable plant for someone to steal."
“我们不可能只是走出去并植入芯片，我们要收集数据，位置定位，记录高度和宽度并测量，”洛夫说道，“我们不可能植入那些不健康的植物或是对盗贼来说不值得拥有的植物。”

There's federal precedent for cactus-chipping. The Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Arizona and Nevada began putting microchips in barrel cactuses in 1999 after getting reports of poaching from park visitors.
仙人掌芯片是联邦政府的范例。在亚利桑那州和内华达州的湿地公园国家休闲区，在公园参观者中有人偷猎的报道之后，于1999年已开始把微型芯片植入仙人掌。

"Not only has it helped us with reducing the level of cactus that's being poached, but it also has helped us with cataloging our resources within the park," said Lake Mead spokesman Andrew Munoz.
“不仅仅是帮助我们降低被偷盗的仙人掌水平，还可以帮助我们对公园里的资源进行编目录。”湿地发言人Andrew Munoz说。

原文链接：http://a.abcnews.com/US/WireStory?id=5981546&page=2