靠的专家，其中包括约500位拥有博士学位的科学家，此外还有研究生、博士后研究生和培训学员。自20世纪60年代以来，这些人才使国家动物园发表了4800篇科学论文——超过其他任何动物园。
蒙福特说，史密森尼保护生物研究所的使命不仅限于了解生物多样性，它还在美国以及全球保护生物多样性方面发挥积极作用。史密森尼保护生物研究所的科学家在25个国家工作，其中包括巴拿马、秘鲁、加蓬、纳米比亚、博茨瓦纳、泰国、马来西亚、蒙古、中国、印度及牙买加等。
蒙福特表示，“我们研究的是基础科学。但我们正在运用科学去帮助解决野生保护问题，并努力帮助培养下一代科学家。”
据蒙福特表示，史密森尼保护生物研究所同时还拥有全世界一流的繁殖科学项目。他说：“这非常重要，因为我们对物种如何繁殖知之甚少。”
这只雌性弯角剑羚于2010年4月15日在国家动物园史密森尼保护生物研究所产下一只幼崽，是动物园13年来的首例。世界上已没有野生羚羊。
蒙福特说，在5500种已知哺乳动物中，人类了解大约220种的生殖生物学及生殖行为，其中大多数为实验室及农场动物。他说，“所以我们对一些物种繁殖的了解目前只是冰山一角。我们圈养它们，它们就停止繁殖，而我们不知道其中缘由。”
然而，在史密森尼保护生物研究所里圈养的25种哺乳动物及鸟类中，有一些正逐渐揭示它们的秘密。猎豹便是其中之一。
有着1000多家政府及非政府组织成员的世界自然保护联盟（World Conservation
Union）将猎豹列为“易危”物种，估计野生幸存数量仅有7500到10000万只左右。这种陆地上速度最快的动物似乎逃脱不了因人类冲突、捕猎与栖息地丧失而带来的劫掠。
蒙福特说，圈养的猎豹中仅有30%左右进行繁殖。然而科学家们通过耐心收集分析粪便样本发现，当雌性猎豹被成群饲养时——如在一些动物园里，占主导地位的猎豹会释放一种荷尔蒙，从而抑制其他成员的繁殖周期。
蒙福特解释说，在野生环境中雌性猎豹独自生活，雄性猎豹会穿过各雌性猎豹的领地来寻找愿意接受它的伴侣。因此在史密森尼保护生物研究所，现有4.5公顷的区域专门划给雌性猎豹，每一只都有自己的地盘。雄性猎豹可从雌性猎豹的属地经过。最终结果：已有四只猎豹幼崽在史密森尼保护生物研究所出生。尽管这个数字看起来并不大，但对于一个在困境中挣扎的物种来说是一个成功。
蒙福特说，全世界约有25%的脊椎动物面临灭绝，这应当给我们人类敲响警钟。他说：“人类是生物多样性的一部分。生态系统有助于人类生存。”
蒙福特说，如果生态系统崩溃，人类会失去气候调节、洪水和疾病控制以及其他许多惠益，包括那些尚未被发现的好处。他说，史密森尼保护生物研究所的资源使它拥有独一无二的优势去解开其中一些奥秘。除了其自身为野生保护及挽救濒危物种所做的努力外，史密森尼保护生物研究所也是其他培训机构的国际交流重镇。
蒙福特指出，对美国的“超级动物园”以及其他许多地方而言，“动物园已经从为人们提供娱乐的马戏团式的场所发生了转变。……动物园正在成为保护中心。”
请访问
史密森尼保护生物研究所网站获取更多信息。
请到
史密森尼学会网站了解这个全球规模最大的博物馆及研究机构。史密森尼学会拥有19个博物馆、9个研究中心，并且在全世界有140多家附属博物馆。
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http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/chinese/article/2013/07/20130712278603.html#ixzz2ZptICgzp
America’s “Superzoo” Promotes Biodiversity, Conservation
By Jane Morse | Staff Writer | 11 July
2013
A female cheetah with her cub at the Smithsonian Conservation
Biology Institute in Front Royal, Virginia. The facility is part of
the National Zoo.
Washington — If you think of a zoo as only a collection of sad
animals locked in cages, then you haven’t been to the Smithsonian’s
National Zoological Park.
About 2,000 animals representing 400 species live and thrive at
this 66-hectare urban park located in northwest Washington. The
only federally funded zoo in the United States, the National Zoo
was founded in 1889 to provide leadership in animal care, science,
education and sustainability.
More than 2 million people from around the globe visit this
facility each year. What most people never get to see is an array
of endangered species and the small army of scientists and wildlife
experts who study them at the zoo's Smithsonian Conservation
Biology Institute (SCBI).
Located on 1,295 hectares of rolling hills in Front Royal,
Virginia, SCBI is devoted to training wildlife professionals in
conservation biology and to propagating rare species through
natural means and assisted reproduction.
“We are the focal point for conservation for the entire Smithsonian
Institution,” Dr. Steven L. Monfort, SCBI’s director, told a group
of foreign journalists who recently visited the facility as part of
a program offered by the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Press
Center.
No other institution, Monfort said, has a pool of expertise to draw
upon that includes some 500 scientists with doctoral degrees, plus
graduate students, postdoctoral students and trainees. Since the
1960s, all this brainpower has enabled the zoo to publish 4,800
scientific papers, more than any other zoo.
SCBI’s mission, Monfort said, is not just to understand
biodiversity, but to take an active role in saving it — both in the
United States and around the world. SCBI scientists work in 25
countries, including Panama, Peru, Gabon, Namibia, Botswana,
Thailand, Malaysia, Mongolia, China, India and Jamaica.
“We’re about fundamental science, but we are using science to help
resolve conservation problems and work on helping to train the next
generation of scientists,” Monfort said.
SCBI also has one of the top reproductive science programs in the
world, according to Monfort. “That’s important,” he said, “because
we know virtually nothing about the way that species
reproduce.”
Of the 5,500 known mammal species, Monfort said, about 220, mostly
lab and farm animals, are understood in terms of their reproductive
biology and behavior. “So we are right at the point of the tip of
the iceberg in understanding how some of these species reproduce,”
he said. “We bring them into captivity and they don’t reproduce and
we don’t know why.”
When this female scimitar-horned oryx gave birth to its calf on
April 15, 2010, at the National Zoo’s Smithsonian Conservation
Biology Institute, it was the zoo’s first in 13 years. Oryx are
extinct in the wild.
But slowly some of the 25 species of mammals and birds kept at SCBI
are divulging their secrets. Case in point: cheetahs. Cheetahs are
listed as “vulnerable” by the World Conservation Union, which has
more than 1,000 government and nongovernmental organizations as
members. Only an estimated 7,500 to 10,000 cheetahs are thought to
endure in the wild. The fastest animal on land could not, it seems,
outrun the depredation of human conflict, hunting and habitat
loss.
Only about 30 percent of cheetahs in captivity reproduce, Monfort
said. But by patiently collecting and analyzing fecal samples,
scientists have discovered that when female cheetahs are kept in
groups, as is the case in some zoos, the dominant member will
excrete a hormone that represses the reproductive cycles of the
others.
In the wild, female cheetahs live alone, and a male will pass
through the territories of various females to find a mate to accept
him, Monfort explained. So at SCBI, four and a half hectares are
devoted to female cheetahs, each of which has her own yard. The
males are paraded past them. End result: Four litters have been
born at SCBI. And while this may not seem like a lot, it is a
success for a struggling species.
With some 25 percent of all vertebrate groups at risk of extinction
around the world, we humans need to worry, Monfort said. “Humans
are part of biodiversity,” he said. “Ecosystems help humans
survive.”
If ecosystems collapse, Monfort said, humans lose out on climate
regulation, flood and disease controls, and many other benefits,
including those yet to be discovered.
Smithsonian Institution resources make it uniquely qualified to
uncover some of the mysteries, Monfort said. In addition to its own
work on conservation and saving endangered species, SCBI is an
international hub for other training organizations.
As for America’s “superzoo” as well as many others, Monfort
observed: “Zoos have evolved from being places with a circus-type
menagerie for people’s entertainment. ... Zoos are looking into
becoming conservation centers.”
See the Smithsonian
Conservation Biology Institute website for more
information.
Learn more about the world's largest
museum and research complex, with 19 museums, nine research centers
and more than 140 affiliate museums around the world, at the
Smithsonian
Institution’s website.
Read more:
http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/article/2013/07/20130710278455.html#ixzz2ZptJzps1
