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Because the early hunter populations were comparatively small and the animal populations truly monumental
由于早期狩獵的人類相對較少，而動物的數量卻十分龐大
as many as ten million mammoth carcasses are thought to lie frozen in the tundra of northern Siberia alone
據說僅在西伯利亞北部的凍原上就發現了多達1000萬只猛犸的尸體一些權威認為，
some authorities think there must be other explanations, possibly involving climate change or some kind of pandemic.
大型動物的大規模滅絕一定還有別的原因，可能與氣候變化或某些傳染病流行有關。
As Ross MacPhee of the American Museum of Natural History put it
正如美國自然史博物館的羅斯.麥克費所指出的那樣
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.
人們并不需要過于頻繁地去捕殺危險動物——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.
有的人認為也許與動物極易被捕獲有關。
"In Australia and the Americas," says Tim Flannery, "the animals probably didn't know enough to run away."
“在澳大利亞和美洲，”提姆.弗蘭納里說，“動物很可能并不十分清楚應該跑得遠遠的。”
Some of the creatures that were lost were singularly spectacular and would take a little managing if they were still around.
在那些消失的動物中，有一些確實引入注目，如果它們依然生活在我們周圍的話，得對它們稍加管束才是。
Imagine ground sloths that could look into an upstairs window, tortoises nearly the size of a small Fiat,
請想像一下這樣的景象，地懶正在往樓上的窗戶里瞅，烏龜幾乎和小型菲亞特汽車一樣大，
monitor lizards twenty feet long basking beside desert highways in Western Australia.
6米長的蜥蜴在西澳大利亞州公路旁的沙漠里曬太陽。
Alas, they are gone and we live on a much diminished planet.
哎，它們都一去不復運了，我們人類生活在一個很貧乏的星球上。
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種大型（重達1噸，甚至更重）陸地動物存活了下來：大象、犀牛、河馬和長頸鹿。
Not for tens of millions of years has life on Earth been so diminutive and tame.
可是，在過去的數千萬年的時間里，地球上的生命從來不像今天那樣靛乏和溫順。
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
問題是，大型動物在石器時代和近代的滅絕，是不是同一次火絕事件的組成部分
whether, in short, humans are inherently bad news for other living things.
簡而言之，人類的出現對其他生命來說是不是一個壞消息？
The sad likelihood is that we may well be.
令人可悲的是，很可能就是。
