Among the most revered natural objects throughout human history, seashells encapsulate both the surprise and wonder still promised by a trip to the beach—and the profound changes underway on our coasts. Like suburbanites obsessed with trim green lawns, many beachgoers have developed a preference for immaculately groomed sand. Manicured beaches can mean heavy machinery that rakes the sand with sharp tines. As the sand-tillers sift out plastic, cigarette butts and other human detritus, they also scoop up marine life, shells, and driftwood.
作为人类历史上最受喜爱的自然物，贝壳包含着海滩之旅的所有惊喜和奇迹，以及海岸正在发生着的深刻变化。就像郊区居民痴迷于修剪整齐的草坪一样，许多去海滩的人也偏爱“修剪”干净的沙滩，“修剪”整齐的海滩就意味着用锋利的尖头耙沙的重型机械。沙工在筛除塑料、烟头和其他人类留下的垃圾的同时，他们也会捞起海洋生物、贝壳和浮木。
Research funding for commercially important species means that scientists know the most about the mollusks we eat. Channeled whelk and knobbed whelk, once ubiquitous on the beaches from Cape Cod to Cape Canaveral, became multi-million-dollar fisheries faster than they could be regulated. Researchers have found female whelks are being harvested before they have a chance to reproduce.
对重要物种的研究资助意味着科学家对我们吃的软体动物了解最多。从科德角到卡纳维拉尔角的海滩上，海螺曾经无处不在，但这里很快就变成了价值数百万美元的渔场。研究者发现雌海螺在繁殖之前就已被捕获一空。
On Sanibel Island on the southwestern coast of Florida, mollusks burrow, bubble and scoot along the wet sand in a colorful parade of seashells. Twenty-five years ago, Sanibel became the first city in the U.S. to ban “live shelling,” the practice of collecting and killing mollusks for their shells. The move to protect the individual lives of soft-bodied mollusks seems almost quaint given ocean warming and other “crude realities of the changing world,” acknowledges José H. Leal, science director and curator at Sanibel’s Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum.
在佛罗里达州西南海岸的萨尼贝尔岛上，软体动物在潮湿的沙滩上挖洞、吐泡泡、滑行，形成了一群色彩斑斓的贝壳。25年前，萨尼贝尔成为美国第一个禁止“实弹炮击”的城市，即收集并杀死软体动物获取其壳的做法。萨尼贝尔贝利—马修斯国家贝壳博物馆的科学主任和馆长José H. Leal说，考虑到海洋变暖和其他“变化中的世界的原始现实”，保护软体动物个体生命的行动被视为是古怪的。
But helping beachgoers appreciate the animals inside the shell as much as the polished exterior turns out to be a crucial step toward helping them understand what’s happening in the sea, Leal says. “Even at the subliminal level, if people understand the complexity of these animals and their importance, they also realize the need to protect ocean ecosystems.”
但帮助游客欣赏光滑外表下贝壳内的动物是帮助他们了解海洋中正在发生的事情的关键一步。里尔说：“即使是在潜意识层面，如果人们了解这些动物的复杂性和它们的重要性，也能意识到保护海洋生态系统的必要性。”
Delaware’s state parks are among increasing numbers of state and national parks taking so-called low-impact beachcombing a step further: asking visitors to leave empty shells alone, too. At Delaware Seashore State Park, signs advise visitors to “Leave shells where they lay or snap a photo of a marine critter in the sand. After all, the point of enjoying nature is because it is in a natural state.”
特拉华州的州立公园和越来越多的州立公园和国家公园正在推进清理进程，以进一步减少对海滩的影响，他们要求游客不要碰空贝壳。在特拉华海岸州立公园，指示牌建议游客“把贝壳留在它们原来所在的地方，或者在沙滩上给海洋生物拍照。毕竟，享受自然的意义在于天然的状态。”
图文来源 | National Geographic
翻译 | 新译科技AI+人工校对
编辑、排版 | 吉艺慧
