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Then in 1939, by happy coincidence two separate birding enthusiasts, in widely separated locations, came across lone survivors just two days apart.
接著，1939年，有兩個狂熱的鳥類愛好者僅僅在相隔兩天的時間里，
They both shot the birds, and that was the last that was ever seen of Bachman's warblers.
分別在兩個相距很遠的地點巧遇了幾只幸存的蟲森鶯，他們不約而同地向這些鳥開了槍。
The impulse to exterminate was by no means exclusively American.
這種滅絕行為并不僅僅發生在美國。
In Australia, bounties were paid on the Tasmanian tiger (properly the thylacine), a doglike creature with distinctive "tiger" stripes across its back,
在澳大利亞，一直在懸賞捕殺塔斯馬尼亞虎（確切的稱謂是袋狼），一種長得像狗，背部有明顯的老虎條紋的動物
until shortly before the last one died, forlorn and nameless, in a private Hobart zoo in 1936.
直到過不多久它們中的最后一只于1936年悄無聲息地死在霍巴特的一家私家動物園。
Go to the Tasmanian Museum today and ask to see the last of this species
今天，如果你去塔斯馬尼亞博物館兼美術館要求看一眼最后一只這種動物
the only large carnivorous marsupial to live into modern times—and all they can show you are photographs.
惟一生存到現代的大型肉食有袋動物——他們所能展示給你的僅僅是這種動，物的照片和一段61秒鐘長的老電影。
The last surviving thylacine was thrown out with the weekly trash.
最后一只存活下來的袋狼死了以后已經隨每周清理一次的垃圾扔掉了。
I mention all this to make the point that if you were designing an organism to look after life in our lonely cosmos,
我所以提這一切，為的是說明，如果你在打算委派哪種生物去照料我們這個寂寞宇宙中的生命，
to monitor where it is going and keep a record of where it has been, you wouldn't choose human beings for the job.
監測它們正在去往何方，記錄它們去過何處，你不會選擇人類來擔當這一項工作。
But here's an extremely salient point: we have been chosen, by fate or Providence or whatever you wish to call it.
但是，無可改變的事實是：我們已經被選中了，不管是命中注定，還是天意眷顧，抑或你希望稱做任何別的原因。
As far as we can tell, we are the best there is.
就我們所知，我們是最優秀的。
We may be all there is. It's an unnerving thought that we may be the living universe's supreme achievement and its worst nightmare simultaneously.
我們也許是最有智慧的，我們也許是萬物之靈長，同時也是萬物最可怕之噩夢，想到這一點真令人沮喪。
Because we are so remarkably careless about looking after things, both when alive and when not, we have no idea
我們對于自己的照料工作是如此的漫不經心，無論它們活著的時候還是死了以后，
really none at all—about how many things have died off permanently, or may soon, or may never, and what role we have played in any part of the process.
究竟有多少種生物已經滅絕，或即將滅絕，或永遠不會滅絕，在此過程中我們究竟扮演何種角色，我們都一無所知——真的是一無所知。
