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Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, the mammals have finally arrived in force. Australian possums.
聰明能干，哺乳動物最終大規模到達了。澳洲袋貂
Imported for their fur two centuries ago,
200年前它們的皮毛被進口
they soon reached plague proportions, stripping trees of their vegetation.
不久就帶來了鼠疫，毀壞了草木
A war is being waged against them...traps set and poison scattered.
一場對它們發動的戰爭...陷阱裝置和散布的毒物
And yet they are now far more numerous than the kakapo ever were.
可是它們的數量遠遠超過鸮鵡的數量
A staggering 70 million possums overrun New Zealand's forests.
難以置信得超過7千萬只袋貂 散布在新西蘭的森林里
Where a bird failed, a mammal has succeeded. But why? The possums were unwitting immigrants,
鳥失敗了 哺乳動物嬴了。為什么？袋貂是不知情的移民
while the kakapo have lived here for millennia...perfectly adapted to this forest.
鸮鵡生活在這里已數千年...完美地適應了這里的森林
It's an irony that is by no means unique to the kakapo and the possum.
具有諷刺的是這里并不僅有鸮鵡和袋貂
Right across the Pacific, similar scenes have been unfolding.
橫過太平洋 類似的場景依然在演化著
Tiny islands off the coast of New Zealand
新西蘭海岸外的小島
are the last refuge for a host of animals now vanished from the two main islands.
是一大群動物最后的避難所 它們如今在兩個主島上已經消失了
This is Stephens Island...one square mile of rock protruding from the ocean.
這是斯蒂芬島...是從海上突出的一平方英哩的巖石
It's home to a living fossil, a relict, barely changed for over 100 million years.
它是一位活化石的家，一位殘遺體 1億年來幾乎沒有改變過
The tuatara. And half the world's population survive on this one island refuge.
楔齒蜥。全球一半的數量生存在這個島嶼庇護所
During the reign of the dinosaurs, the ancestors of the tuatara were everywhere.
在恐龍統治時期，楔齒蜥的祖先無處不在
They survived the cataclysm that killed off the dinosaurs,
它們從恐龍滅絕的劇變時代中存活下來
but then couldn't compete with the mammals and died out...everywhere,
卻無法與哺乳動物相抗爭，滅絕了...無論何處
except on what was then a mammal-free New Zealand.
除了不受哺乳動物影響的新西蘭
