這是一個快樂學習 用心生活的小天地

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TORONTO, Canada A Canadian-based ecologist said Friday that he has located the world’s largest beaver dam in northwestern Canada using Google satellite technology. 一名加拿大的生態學家七日表示，他已經使用谷歌衛星科技在加拿大西北部找到了世界上最大的河狸壩。

Ecologist Jean Thie located the 2,788-foot (850-meter) dam using Google Earth and NASA technology while researching the rate of melting permafrost in the country’s far north. 生態學家珍提研究加拿大最北部永凍層融化的速度時，使用「谷歌地球」和美國太空總署的科技，找到了這座2,788英尺（850米）的水壩。

Situated in northern Alberta’s Wood Buffalo National Park, 190km north of Fort McMurray, which straddles the Alberta-Northwest Territories border, the dam stretches more than eight football fields long, said Thie. Normally these dams reach roughly 10 - 100m and rarely do they ever get bigger. 珍提說，這座河狸壩座落在北部艾伯塔省伍德布法羅國家公園中，麥克莫瑞堡北方一百九十公里，跨越艾伯塔與西北地方的邊界，延伸超過 8個足球場長。通常這種河狸壩長約10至100米，而且很少再大。

"I couldn’t believe it when I saw it — it’s a vast, vast area. There may be longer dams out there, but this, by far, is the largest I have seen so far. And, it would not have been possible to view it without something like Google Earth," said Thie. 珍提說，「我看到它的時候簡直無法相信，──那是一片遼闊、遼闊的區域。別的地方也許有更長的水壩，但這個壩是到目前為止我見過的最大的一個。而且，沒有像谷歌地球這樣的東西去查看，是不可能看到的。」

Thie told The Associated Press the detailed satellite program helped him conclude the dam was the work of beavers — which, incidentally, are the country’s national symbol. 珍提告訴美聯社，詳細的衛星程式幫助他下結論大壩是河狸的作品──順便說一句，河狸是加拿大的國家象徵。

Thie discovered the dam in 2007, but he said it only recently caught media attention after someone at a British paper spotted his findings on a blog and ran a story reiterating Thie’s claim that the dam is visible from space. Thie stakes that claim because he used satellite technology to detect the dam. 珍提在2007年發現這座壩，但是他說，直到一家英國報紙的某人在部落格見到他的調查結果，寫了篇故事重申珍提聲明大壩從太空可以見得到之後，最近才引起媒體的注意。珍提敢這麼聲明，是因為他利用了衛星科技偵測到這座壩。

"It might be hard to believe, but there are a few things that are visible from space, and beaver dams are among the few animal-made structures that are," said Thie. 珍提說，「這可能很難相信，但有些東西從太空看得見，而河狸壩是少數動物製造的構體中可見的之一。」

Park spokesman Mike Keizer said the dam sits in a corner of a park "the size of Switzerland" in an area surrounded by heavily forested marshland. 公園發言人邁克‧科澤爾說，河狸壩座落在「瑞士那麼大」的公園的一個角落，那塊地區周圍都是茂密的森林沼澤。

Keizer flew over the beaver dam, but said there was no safe place to land anywhere nearby because it’s either overly boggy or the foliage is too dense. 科澤爾飛越河狸壩，但說那附近沒有任何可安全降落的地方，因為那裡要不是沼澤太多，就是樹葉太濃密。

Some people even say, these dams are partly created by felled trees. This particular Beaver dam is full of grass and it is very green. 有些人甚至說，這些水壩部分是由被砍伐的樹木創造的。這個特別的河狸壩充滿了草葉，非常綠。
Beavers were hunted extensively for their pelts for many centuries throughout north America. Thie also describes how they are not only repopulating areas but even "re-engineering the landscape,". Beavers use these dams to create deep water which allows the them to be more mobile and they are an essential part of creating Canada’s wetland habitat. 許多世紀以來在整個北美，河狸因牠們的皮毛而遭到廣泛獵捕。珍提還描述了牠們如何不僅棲居某些區域，甚至還「重新設計了景觀」。河狸使用這些水壩創造深水，讓牠們機動性更高，而且牠們是創造加拿大濕地棲息地必不可少的一部分。

Using past images and park aerial photography, Thie concluded that the eager beavers began their work in the 1970s and that generations of the rodents have worked on it since. 珍提利用過去的影像和公園空中攝影，下結論說急切的河狸在70年代開始工作，同時好幾世代的老鼠此後一直在打造水壩。

"This was the work of extended families," said Thie, who is the president of EcoInformatics, a science research company. 「這是大家族的作品。」珍提說。他是一個科研公司「生態資訊」的總經理。

According to Geostrategis.com the actual search strategy was based on analysing hundreds of dams across Canada and using broad characteristics, certain areas were considered having the highest probability of high density beaver dam landscapes. 根據Geostrategis.com網站，實際的搜索策略是基於分析加拿大各地的數百座水壩，以及使用概括的特徵，某些區域被認為擁有高密度河狸壩景觀的概率最高。