这是一片霜封的舞台，汇集了丹顶鹤，大天鹅，梅花鹿，雪猴等动物。日本能够将他们对动物的古老崇敬转化成现代的动物保护吗？
In other seasons there might be 20 of us and only a few of them. But now, in the heart of winter, there are 20 of us and 150 of them. We are Homo sapiens, a gaggle of bird-watchers, scientists, and photographers; they are Grus japonensis, the rare and celebrated red-crowned crane.
如果是在别的季节，我们这边的人马大概会有20个，而对方只会有几个。但是现在正值隆冬，我们这边的数目还是20，对方却增加到150。我们是人类，一群嘈杂的赏鸟人士、科学家和摄影师；它们则是Grus japonensis，也就是罕见而知名的丹顶鹤。
The field is white and the wooded edges dark with everGREen. Out in the open in the fine snow of Hokkaido cluster the great white cranes, the black tertial plumes of their broad wings arranged over their rumps like elegant bustles. Known in Japan as tancho (red peak), the red-crowned is the second rarest crane species, after the whooping crane, with a world population of fewer than 2,500 birds. It is in other seasons fiercely territorial, but now the birds are gathered in one clangorous flock to scoop up the winter feed laid down for them by farmers. Some stalk the field or stand in pairs, lifting their bills to trumpet a shrill, rolling cry, a "unison" call that carries across the fields. One flares its wings and arches its back in a dramatic threat display to relieve the tension of crowding. A swoop of six arrives on motionless wing from their roost site in a nearby river, drop lightly to the ground amid the others, and lower their heads to pluck the scattered corn, FLASHing their brilliant caps of crimson like blood on snow.
野地上银白一片，远处围绕着暗绿色的常绿树木。在北海道的旷野上，丹顶鹤群聚在柔细的白雪上，它们双翅上醒目的黑色羽毛优雅地围在尾部，很像贵妇优雅的裙撑。丹顶鹤是世上第二罕见的鹤，仅次于美洲鹤，目前全球幸存数量低于2500只。在其它季节中，它们的领土意识很强，但现在它们喧闹地聚集成群，抢着享用农夫为它们准备的冬季美食。有些鹤在原野上高视阔步或成双站立，仰头发出尖锐响亮的叫声，这是鹤的“齐鸣”，声音响遍四野。有一只丹顶鹤展翅拱背，摆出威吓的姿态以纾解拥挤的压力。六只丹顶鹤从附近河中的巢址翩然而至，轻盈地在其它鹤群之间落地，低头啄食四散的谷粒，露出一顶顶艳红色的头冠，一如雪中之血。
The Japanese have a word, aware, for the feelings that arise from the poignant beauty of an ephemeral thing. The word refers not to the fragility or loss of the thing itself, but to the human feelings evoked by its passing. Those of us pressed against the rail are elated and grateful for this close look at the cranes concentrated here like a vision—and which, like a vision, may just as quickly vanish. No wonder people fly halfway around the world, board buses and trains and ferries, and wait patiently in the heavy snow to see these birds gather to preen and flare and dance their wild courtship dances. No wonder the crane is revered by the Japanese and so admired that their art never tires of representing it.
日本人用“哀”这个字来形容美丽却短暂易逝的事物给人的感受。这个字指的不是事物本身的脆弱或消逝，而是指它的消逝在人心中激起的情感。我们紧贴着栏杆，心中充满喜悦与感激，只因我们能在近距离欣赏如梦似幻的鹤群──而且正如梦幻一般，它们很可能迅速消失。难怪有人愿意飞越大半个地球，搭公车、火车和渡船前来，耐心地在大雪中守候，只为欣赏这些鹤整理羽毛，展翅跳着热烈的求偶之舞。也难怪日本人如此尊崇丹顶鹤，并且永不厌倦地透过艺术表现对它们的欣赏。
Only in Japan's winter does this spectacle occur, and others as well, a striking assemblage of animals, from cranes and eagles to snow monkeys and sika deer, that endure the season's hard tenancy in small refuges, natural and man-made, on Hokkaido and in the mountains of Japan's main island, Honshu. Some of the animals that take shelter in these spots are abundant, even overabundant; others are rare, having been hunted to the brink of extinction or chivied out of their last natural redoubts by human pressures. Some are in the winter of their existence and endure only through the courageous efforts of a few people working against GREat odds.
唯有在日本的冬季，才见得到这个群鹤共食的奇观和其它特殊景致。这里聚集的动物种类之多令人称奇，从鹤、鹰、雪猴到梅花鹿都有；它们栖息在北海道及日本主岛本州岛的山区间，在自然或人造的小庇护区内度过严冬。在这些地点找寻庇护的动物，有些数量很多、甚至过多；有些则很稀有，正因人类的猎杀而处于灭绝边缘，或是因人类造成的压力而逐渐离开最后的自然堡垒。其中有些动物正处于生存的严冬，多亏有些人不畏艰难地在种种不利条件下努力，它们才能继续生存。
The concentration of these creatures in small shards of habitat on a crowded island nation creates scenes of startling beauty—and sometimes, startling conflict. I've come to Hokkaido to learn what lessons might underlie these spectacles, what they might teach us about wildness and survival and the riddle of our own relations to nature.
在日本这个拥挤的岛国上，这些动物集中在几块小栖息地上，创造出如此惊人的美丽──有时也会造成惊人的冲突。我之所以来到北海道，就是为了找出这些奇景背后可能的意义，看它们能否让我们更加了解原野、了解生存之道，以及人类与自然之间的不解之迷。
Winter brings 2,000 Steller's sea-eagles to the coast of Hokkaido—almost a third of the species' population. Come spring, they head north to Russia to breed. With a wingspan of up to nine feet (two meters) and weight of up to 20 pounds (ten kilograms), the Steller's far outsizes North America's bald eagle.
冬天，2000只虎头海雕来到北海道海岸，这个数字占了该物种总数量的三分之一。春天一到，它们都前往北方的俄罗斯繁殖。翼展几达三公尺、重可达九公斤的虎头海雕，体型上远超过北美洲的白头海雕。
Even cloaked in ice, an oldsquaw duck finds Hokkaido's winter climate bearable. The ducks' densely packed feathers trap enough air to insulate them from frigid waters.
即使身上被冰块覆盖，这只长尾鸭还是经得起北海道冬天的气候；这是因为它紧密的羽毛能够留住足够空气，让它在冰寒的水中保持温暖。
It may be called the Jigokudani Wild Monkey Park, but the Japanese macaques here have taken up one of life's more civilized pleasures: hot tubbing. A series of hot springs help keep the monkeys warm through the cold winters. Also known as snow monkeys, Japanese macaques are the world's northernmost non-human primates.
这里虽然名为“地狱谷野生猴园”，但这里的日本猕猴已经开始享受生命中比较文明的乐趣：泡热水澡。一连串火山池使猕猴能在酷寒的冬天保持温暖。日本猕猴又称为雪猴，是人类以外生活在地球最北方的灵长类动物。
Red-crowned cranes sing a "unison" call on Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan's main islands. Once almost extinct in Japan, hundreds of the revered cranes now winter here, helped by handouts of grain from local farmers.
丹顶鹤在日本最北的主岛北海道发出“齐鸣”。虽然丹顶鹤在日本备受崇敬，然而它们却一度几乎灭绝，现在有几百只在北海道过冬，当地农民以谷物喂食来帮助它们生存。
Punctuated by leaps that can reach ten feet, the dance of the red-crowned crane is so arresting that Japan actually named a city for it: Maizuru, or Dancing Crane.
丹顶鹤的舞蹈中也包含高达三米的跳跃，它们的舞蹈如此迷人，日本人甚至以它们的舞蹈为一座城市命名：舞鹤。
Too many animals, too little space: It's not an uncommon problem in Japan. Consider the Japanese macaque, a natural treasure and winter spectacle. These monkeys are famous for their cultural transmission behavior (young monkeys learn from their elders novel kinds of behaviors, from grooming techniques to food preparation) and for living farther north than any other primate except humans. Some 110,000 live in Japan, 7,000 of them in the cold, snowy alps of Honshu, where they have earned the moniker "snow monkey."
动物太多，空间太少：在日本，这是个常见的问题。日本的自然珍宝与冬季奇观日本猕猴就是一个例子。日本猕猴最出名的是它们的文化传递行为（幼猴会从年长猴处学习新的行为，从理毛技巧到食物处理），它们也是人类以外，生活在地球最北处的灵长类动物。约有11万日本猕猴居住在日本，其中7000只住在本州岛寒冷而多雪的高山，使它们赢得了“雪猴”的别名。
Jigokudani Wild Monkey Park draws hundreds of thousands of visitors a year to watch the macaques, especially in winter. To help keep the monkeys in the area, the park staff feeds them several times a day and has done so for 40 years. When the feeding started, the troop numbered 23 individuals; now it has about 200.
地狱谷野生猴园每年吸引几十万游客前来观赏日本猕猴，尤其在冬季。为了将猴子留在园区内，园区的工作人员40年来每天都会喂食猴子几次。园区刚开始喂食猴子时，猴群内共有23只猴子，现在已有大约200只。
Here and elsewhere in Japan, artificial feeding of the monkeys with "human" foods and their burgeoning numbers in populated areas have begun to cause problems. In ancient Japanese folktales, monkeys often appear as tricksters, cleverly duping other animals out of their rice ball or persimmon fruit. The macaques at Jigokudani and other spots in Japan are living up to their bad rap, raiding orchards and gardens, taking apples, prize grapes, and other crops. The situation is especially bad where expanding numbers of monkeys are moving closer to villages and growing bolder in their exploits, occasionally attacking humans and stealing food from inside houses.
不论在这里或是日本其它地方，用人类的食物喂食猴子，以及它们在有人类居住地区的数量增长，都已经开始造成问题了。在古老的日本民间故事里，猴子往往扮演爱恶作剧的妖精，狡狯地骗走其它动物的饭团或柿子。地狱谷和其它地方的日本猕猴也还真是不负它们的坏名声，侵袭果园和花园，偷走苹果、葡萄和其它作物。越靠近村庄的地方问题越严重，在数目膨胀的猴群中，猴子们的行为越来越胆大妄为，偶尔还会攻击人类，甚至从住屋内偷取食物。
