打破藩篱为何不受欢迎？_时事_双语阅读-查字典英语网

打破藩篱为何不受欢迎？

Fifteen years ago, Thomas Snitch fell in love. Not with a human being, however: he and his wife had been trekking in Uganda and encountered some gorillas in the wild. And that sparked a passion for finding ways to protect these creatures from increasingly frequent attacks by poachers.

15年前，托马斯·斯尼奇(Thomas Snitch)“坠入了爱河。不过，他爱上的不是人类：他和妻子在乌干达徒步旅行时遇到了一群野生大猩猩，这激发了他保护这种动物的热情，想设法让它们免遭偷猎者日益猖獗的猎杀。

Initially, Snitch, a University of Maryland trustee, supported the dizzying multitude of wildlife funds that have sprung up in the west in recent years. But then he had a brainwave. As an adjunct to his academic work, Snitch advises the US military on how to predict the movements of insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq, with a view to using satellite devices to foil roadside improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

斯尼奇是美国马里兰大学(University of Maryland)的校董。最初，斯尼奇支持近年来涌现的各种五花八门的野生动物保护基金会。但后来，他灵机一动，想到一个新点子。在从事学术工作之余，斯尼奇为美国军方预测阿富汗和伊拉克的叛乱者行踪提供咨询，目的是使用卫星设备找到公路边的简易爆炸装置(IED)。

One day, as Snitch was staring at his satellite maps of Iraq, he spotted a similarity to something he recognised from his wildlife passion. For just as insurgents tend to move across landscapes in predictable ways in order to plant landmines, poachers follow familiar patterns to place snares too. The professor started testing algorithms and satellite-mapping techniques – including material gathered from drones via his consortium known as GeoEye – and became convinced that he had stumbled on a powerful new way to prevent animal deaths. “We have found that terrorists are to poachers as IEDs are to animal snares [and] as US troop targets are to tigers, rhinos and gorillas, Snitch says passionately. “Simply stated, the models work for either situation.