你會吃袋鼠嗎？有澳大利亞生態(tài)學(xué)家希望如此。他們表示，澳大利亞的袋鼠數(shù)量過多，應(yīng)該加以控制。還有比把它做成美食更好的方式嗎？

據(jù)BBC新聞報道，目前澳大利亞袋鼠的數(shù)量接近人口的兩倍，正在破壞澳大利亞的生態(tài)系統(tǒng)。這種有袋動物的數(shù)量激增，從2010年的2,700萬只到2016年增加到4,500萬只，主要原因是澳大利亞十多年的濕潤氣候?qū)е轮脖幻?，解決了袋鼠的食物問題。另外一個原因是人類消滅了袋鼠的天敵。

如果放任不管，袋鼠可能會吃光澳大利亞的本土植物，使鳥類等其他動物找不到食物或棲息地。一些地區(qū)因為袋鼠大量啃食草地，已經(jīng)出現(xiàn)了水土流失問題。隨著數(shù)量的增加，袋鼠也可能面臨食物不足的問題，可能出現(xiàn)被餓死的情況。

生態(tài)學(xué)家認為解決這個問題的方法是讓人類多吃袋鼠肉，但這個建議很難讓人接受。袋鼠是澳大利亞的國家象征，雖然游客經(jīng)常會食用袋鼠肉，但本地人幾乎從不吃袋鼠?；蛟S他們應(yīng)該改變心態(tài)：袋鼠肉的脂肪含量較低，而且袋鼠排出的甲烷遠少于其他更傳統(tǒng)的家畜。（財富中文網(wǎng)）

譯者：劉進龍/汪皓

Would you eat a kangaroo? Some Australian ecologists hope so. They say that the country is facing an overabundance of the animal and that the kangaroo population needs to be cut down. And what better way to do that than to have one for dinner?

According to BBC News, there are currently almost twice as many kangaroos as people in Australia, which is destroying the country’s ecosystem. The sharp increase in the marsupial’s population, which has grown from 27 million in 2010 to 45 million in 2016, is due in part to a decade of wet conditions in the country that allowed vegetation to flourish, and kangaroos to have no trouble finding food. Humans have also gotten rid of many of the kangaroo’s natural predators in the country.

If left on their own, kangaroos will potentially wipe out native plants and prevent other animals, such as birds, from being able to find food or shelter. Areas where kangaroos have aggressively eaten the grass are also faced with erosion issues. As the population increases, the animals are also facing a real possibility of running out of food, and potentially starving to death.

Ecologists see the solution is having people eat more kangaroos, but it’s a tough sell. The kangaroo is a national symbol in Australia, and while the animal is often eaten by tourists, locals don't dine on the animal nearly as often. But perhaps they should: Kangaroo meat is low in fat, and the animal produces less methane than other more traditional farm animals.