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Tyger! Tyger! burning bright in the forests of the night. Immortal though those William Blake lines may be, tigers actually used to go pretty much where they wanted, when they wanted. But new research suggests they've become far more the nocturnal creatures of Blake’s poem.
老虎！老虎！火焰闪耀，在黑夜的丛林里熊熊燃烧。尽管威廉·布莱克的诗句可能会永垂不巧。在过去老虎自由自在，可以随心所欲飞奔在任何地方。然而一项新的研究显示，老虎变得越来越像布莱克诗中描述的夜行动物。
Why? To keep away from us. Or at least share the landscape with the hairless, upright ape that has ascended to the top of the global food chain—there’s very little we won't hunt down.
为什么？为了远离人类。抑或是为了跟无毛，直立行走，攀上全球食物链顶层，由猿类进化而来的人类分享资源——人类无所不能，几乎没有到不了手的猎物。
In Nepal camera traps have revealed that tigers and humans now walk literally the same paths through the forest—just at different times. Instead of roaming at will any hour of day or night, the tigers of this region have become creatures of darkness. When people retreat from the forest after a day of work, the tiger takes over.
在尼泊尔陷阱相机揭示：人类和老虎在穿行森林时，几乎是走同一条路线——只不过时间不同。这片区域的老虎变成了夜行生物，它们已告别了不论黑夜白天随意在森林漫步的美好时光。当人们结束一天的工作撤离森林时，老虎这才接管森林。
The study was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
这项研究发表在《美国国家科学院学报》上。
Finding such an accommodation is vital if the last 3,000 or so remaining tigers worldwide are to be saved, especially as the world gets even more crowded with people. To save the big cat, we may just need to leave the forest when it's night.
尤其在这个人类大爆炸的时代，要想保护全世界仅存的3000多只野生老虎，找到这样的栖息地至关重要。为了保护“大猫”这个物种，也许在夜晚离开森林就足够了。
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