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Is there anything we can learn from deer? During the "energy crisis" of 1973-1974 the writer of this essay was living in northern Minnesota and was able to observe how deer survive when winter arrives. The lessons he learns about the way deer conserve energy turn out applicable to our everyday life.
有什么是我們能從鹿身上學到的嗎？在1973-1974年的"能源危機"期間，本文作者正住在明尼蘇達北部，能夠觀察當冬天來臨時，鹿如何生存。他從鹿儲存能量的方法上得到的經驗也能夠運用到我們的日常生活中。
Deer and the Energy Cycle
鹿和能量循環
Aaron N. Moen
阿倫·N·莫恩
Some persons say that love makes the world go round. Others of a less romantic and more practical turn of mind say that it isn't love; it's money. But the truth is that it is energy that makes the world go round. Energy is the currency of the ecological system and life becomes possible only when food is converted into energy, which in turn is used to seekmore food to grow, to reproduce and to survive. On this cycle all life depends.
有些人說，愛情驅使世界運轉；另一些并不那么羅曼蒂克而更為注重實際的人則說，不是愛情，而是金錢。但真實情況是，能量驅使世界運轉。能量是生態系統的貨幣，只有當食物轉變為能量，能量再用來獲取更多的食物以供生長、繁殖和生存，生命才成為可能。所有生命都維系在這一循環上。
It is fairly well known that wild animals survive from year to year by eating as much as they can during times of plenty, the summer and fall, storing the excess, usually in the form of fat, and then using these reserves of fat to survive during the hard times in winter when food is scarce. But it is probably less well known that even with their stored fat, wild animals spend less energy to live in winter than in summer.
差不多眾所周知，野生動物得以年復一年地生存下去，主要依靠在夏秋生長旺季盡量多吃，通常將多余的部分以脂肪的形式儲存起來，然后到了冬天食物稀少的艱難時期，就用這些儲備的脂肪來維持生命。然而，很可能鮮為人知的是，即使有儲備的脂肪，野生動物在冬天消耗的能量比夏天要少。
