"普京之虎"越過俄中邊界釀外交事件

BEIJING — Virile, canny and possessed with a boundless appetite for red meat, Kuzya, a 23-month-old Siberian tiger, would seem the perfect mascot for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who had a personal hand in reintroducing Kuzya to the wild in the Russian Far East in May.

北京——兇猛、機警、對紅肉有無限慾望的西伯利亞虎（中國稱東北虎——譯註）庫茲亞(Kuzya)已有23個月大，對於俄羅斯總統弗拉基米爾·V·普京(Vladimir V. Putin)來說，庫茲亞似乎是一個完美的吉祥物。今年5月，普京親手將它放歸野外。

It turns out Kuzya, like Mr. Putin, has territorial ambitions, which this week drew him across the frigid Amur River that separates Russia and China. His arrival set off a diplomatic incident of sorts when it became clear that “President Putin’s Tiger,” as one Russian newspaper put it, was facing possible peril on the Chinese side of the border.

現在我們知道，原來庫茲亞和普京一樣，有着開拓疆土的野心。在這種野心的驅使下，庫茲亞本週穿越中俄邊境冰冷的阿穆爾河（中國稱黑龍江——譯註）。他的到來在一定程度上引發了外交事件，因爲一家俄羅斯報紙稱，“普京總統的老虎”在中國境內可能面臨危險。

On Friday, wildlife officials in China’s far northeast were scrambling to ascertain Kuzya’s whereabouts after his Russian minders, tracking him by radio transmitter, expressed concern that he could up in the hands of poachers — not an unlikely outcome given the steep price a rare Siberian tiger can fetch on the Chinese black market.

週五，中國東北地區負責野生動物管理工作的官員努力確定庫茲亞的蹤跡，俄羅斯的看管人員通過無線電發射器追蹤庫茲亞，他們擔心庫茲亞可能會落入偷獵者手中，鑑於稀有的西伯利亞虎在中國黑市能夠賣出高價，這也不是不可能。

“There is still hope that Kuzya will be sensible and swim back before the river turns to icy slush,” the newspaper Novaya Gazeta wrote this week.

《新報》(Novaya Gazeta)本週報道稱，“庫茲亞還是有可能覺察到危險，在河流結冰前游回來。”

Despite a spotty record of environmental stewardship, China holds animals in high regard — both as talismans of good fortune and as ambassadors for global diplomacy (see Giant Panda).

儘管環境管理工作時好時壞，中國是十分重視動物的——它們既能帶來好運，又能充當全球外交大使（比如大熊貓）。

Mr. Putin, too, has a soft spot for animals, and he is frequently photographed cavorting with various wild beasts, including snow leopards, polar bears and dolphins.

普京對動物也有鐵漢柔情的一面，他經常被拍到與雪豹、北極熊和海豚等各種野獸歡鬧的場景。

In one of his more notable animal-related photo-ops, Mr. Putin, wearing white coveralls, strapped himself into a motorized hang glider in a failed attempt to lead a flock of endangered white Siberian cranes on a cross-country migration.

在衆多涉及到動物的拍照活動中，格外引人矚目的一次是他身穿白色連體服，駕駛着一架動力三角翼，引導一羣瀕臨滅絕的西伯利亞鶴飛越國界遷徙，但最終失敗。

Given the increasingly close relations between Moscow and Beijing, united against what both countries see as a growing challenge from the West, it appears Chinese officials are taking no chances with Kuzya’s safety.

莫斯科與北京的關係日益密切，兩國在聯合應對來自西方國家的挑戰——據他們稱這種挑戰正越來越嚴重，鑑於這樣的背景，中國官員似乎不會拿庫茲亞的安全冒險。

On Friday, the Foreign Ministry said prodigious efforts were being made to track and protect the tiger, which swam across the Amur on Tuesday after trekking some 300 miles from the spot where Mr. Putin presided over his release.

週五，中國外交部表示，中國正在全力追蹤並保護這隻老虎。本週二，庫茲亞從普京放生的地方行走了300英里（約合483公里），然後遊過了阿穆爾河。

“We will make joint efforts with the Russian side to carry out protection of wild Siberian tigers which travel back and forth between China and Russia,” Hong Lei, a ministry spokesman, said in a statement.

外交部發言人洪磊在一份聲明中稱，“我們將與俄方共同努力，做好在中俄兩國之間來回的野生東北虎的保護工作。”

The incident produced inevitable snickers, with some people in China warning that Kuzya might be a spy, and in Russia, that he was seeking to escape Mr. Putin’s authoritarian grip. “Putin’s Tiger Cub Defects — to China,” read the headline in the British tabloid The Daily Mail.

這一事件必然會引發譏笑，中國的一些人警告稱庫茲亞或許是間諜，俄羅斯人則稱，庫茲亞試圖擺脫普京的獨裁控制。英國《每日郵報》(Daily Mail)發表了題爲《普京的老虎幼崽叛逃至中國》(Putin’s Tiger Cub Defects — to China)的報道。

In China, many microblog users predicted an unhappy ending. “How long before this poor tiger becomes a rug in some rich official’s house?” one observer remarked.

在中國，很多微博用戶預言稱會出現不幸的結局。一名評述者寫道，“可憐的老虎多久後會成爲一些富有官員家裏的地毯呢？”

Even with stepped-up enforcement on both sides of the border, wildlife advocates say about 40 tigers are illegally hunted each year. They feed China’s growing appetite for the tiger parts that are used in traditional Chinese medicine and tiger bone wine.

即便中俄邊境都加強了執法工作，野生動物保護人士表示，每年大約有40只老虎遭到非法獵殺。它們滿足了中國對老虎可被用於製作中藥和虎骨酒的身體部分日益增長的需求。

At $10,000 a carcass, the incentive for poachers is hard to resist.

每一具老虎屍體價值1萬美元（約合6.1萬元人民幣），偷獵者很難抗拒這個誘惑。

Once abundant across the boreal forests of east Asia’s taiga but hunted to the brink of extinction, the Siberian tiger has made something of a comeback in recent years. That is due partly to efforts by the Russian government to combat the illegal logging and poaching that had reduced their numbers.

東亞地區的北方針葉林曾經有很多西伯利亞虎，但它們遭到獵殺，現在已經瀕臨滅絕。最近幾年，西伯利亞虎數量出現了某種程度的恢復。這部分源於俄羅斯政府開始打擊導致西伯利亞虎數量減少的非法採伐和偷獵。

The tiger recovery effort has been one of Mr. Putin’s pet projects.

老虎放生是普京寵物計劃中的一項。

Wildlife officials say there are 370 to 450 Siberian tigers roaming the Russian Far East, up from 40 in the 1940s. Things are not as rosy on the Chinese side.

負責野生動物的官員稱，俄羅斯遠東地區共有370到450只西伯利亞虎生活在野外，而20世紀40年代僅有40只。中國的情況則沒有這麼樂觀。

Fewer than two dozen tigers remain in China. Officials have made notable progress in recent years by setting aside vast tracts of potential tiger habitat, dismantling the snare traps set by Chinese villagers and imposing fines and significant jail time on those found trafficking in tiger parts.

目前，中國境內的西伯利亞虎在20只上下。近年來，官員在老虎的潛在棲息地劃出大量空地、拆除中國村民設置的陷阱，並對從事老虎買賣的人處以罰款及判處較長的徒刑，從而在保護老虎方面取得了巨大進展。

“It’s an uphill battle, but things are getting better,” said Li Qian, who runs the Asian Big Cats program for the World Wildlife Fund in China’s Jilin Province.

在中國吉林省負責運營世界自然基金會(World Wildlife Fund)亞洲大型貓科動物保護項目的李茜（Li Qian，音譯）說，“這是一項艱苦的鬥爭，但情況正在改善。”

On Thursday, officials with the Luobei County Forestry Bureau in Heilongjiang Province said they were installing 60 infrared cameras and dispatching workers to find the illegal traps that local villagers often set to catch an assortment of wildlife.

週四，黑龍江省蘿北縣林業局的官員稱，他們正在設置60臺紅外相機，並派工人前去尋找當地村民爲捕獲各類野生動物而非法設置的陷阱。

Chen Zhigang, the county’s forestry chief, said the government was also prepared to release cattle to supplement a tiger’s normal diet of red deer and wild boar, which are in short supply in China’s heavily populated northeast.

蘿北縣林業局局長陳志剛表示，政府還準備釋放牛羣，以補充西伯利亞虎對赤鹿和野豬的日常需求，這兩種動物在中國人口稠密的東北地區很少見。

Officials, he added, were also working to assuage the fears of local residents “because there has never been a wild tiger in the reserve before,” he told the China News Service.

他還表示，官員正試圖減少當地居民的擔憂。他告訴中國新聞社，“因爲保護區以前從未出現過野生老虎。”

On Friday evening, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported that another one of the tigers Mr. Putin set free in May, a female named Ilona, was reportedly just a few miles from the Sino-Russian border.

週五夜間，中國官方通訊社新華社報道稱，普京於5月放生的另一隻名爲伊洛娜的雌性老虎據稱離中俄邊境僅有數英里。

Maria Vorontsova, director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare in Russia, is following the events closely. Ms. Vorontsova was part of the team that rescued Kuzya and four siblings who were orphaned after a poacher killed their mother nearly two years ago.

國際愛護動物基金會(International Fund for Animal Welfare)在俄羅斯的負責人瑪麗亞·沃龍特索娃(Maria Vorontsova)正在密切關注此事。沃龍特索娃參加了拯救庫茲亞及其四個兄弟姐妹的隊伍。將近兩年前，一個偷獵者殺害了它們的母親，於是這些老虎便成了孤兒。

“Five tigers represent more than 1 percent of the existing population, so it’s important they survive,” she said by phone.

她在電話中說，“這五隻老虎在現存數量中佔了超過1%，所以他們的存活具有重要意義。”

After spending nearly a year in an enclosure, three of the tigers were released in May in a nature preserve in Russia’s Amur Region. It was Mr. Putin, Ms. Vorontsova noted, who pulled the rope that set Kuzya free.

在一個封閉的環境裏待了將近一年之後，5月，其中三隻老虎被釋放到了俄羅斯阿穆爾州的一個自然保護區。沃龍特索娃指出，是普京拉動了將庫茲亞放生的繩索。

(She said she knew Kuzya was a fighter when, moments before dashing into the woods, he took a gratuitous swipe at the GoPro camera recording his release.)

（她說，就在庫茲亞邁入叢林之前，它無緣無故地猛擊了記錄他的放生過程的GoPro相機，這時她明白庫茲亞很好鬥。）

While some of his siblings stayed in the vicinity, Kuzya was apparently taken with wanderlust and zigzagged his way through the sparsely settled Jewish Autonomous Region, safely crossing highways and railroad tracks on his way to China. Wildlife rangers who have been tracking his movements by satellite said he was eating well and avoiding human activity, the key to a rehabilitated tiger’s survival.

庫茲亞的兄弟姐妹還留在附近，但它似乎很熱衷於遊蕩，它曲折前進，穿過人煙稀少的猶太自治區，安全地通過公路和鐵道，最後來到中國。一直在用衛星追蹤它的行動的野生動物監管者稱，它吃得很好，也避開了人類活動，這是被放生的老虎能生存下來的關鍵因素。

Asked whether she thought Kuzya was looking to make some sort of political statement by sneaking into China, Ms. Vorontsova laughed.

當被問到她是否認爲庫茲亞希望能通過潛入中國來表達某種政治觀念，沃龍特索娃笑了。

“Every animal wants a good habitat with enough prey and the possibility to meet a nice female,” she said. “In the meantime, hopefully he won’t get into any trouble.”

“每個動物都希望能有這樣一個棲息地，擁有足夠的獵物，並且有機會遇到一隻不錯的雌性老虎，”她說。“同時，希望他不要遇到什麼麻煩。”