日本一白色海豚激動時變粉色

A rare albino dolphin that can go from white to pink when it is feeling flushed is pulling in the crowds at a water park in Japan.
日本的一家水上公園中，一隻珍稀的白化變種海豚在情緒激動的時候身體顏色會從白色變爲粉色，這一奇觀吸引了許多遊客在此駐足流連。

Although bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops) are usually grey, this extremely rare creature is an albino and has no colouration – apart from a tendency to turn pink when feeling flushed.
儘管寬吻海豚通常是灰色的，這隻極爲罕見的寬吻海豚卻因爲是白化變種而沒有色彩——除了興奮時會變粉。

Photos show how the animal is normally white, and occasionally pink when swimming along regular coloured grey dolphins.
從照片中可以看出，這隻海豚平常是白色的，和尋常的灰色海豚一起游泳，偶爾纔會變成粉色。

Albino mammals are born without melanin, which gives the colour to both eyes and skin, and albino dolphins are extremely rare.
白化哺乳動物在出生的時候體內就不含黑色素，而黑色素會讓動物眼睛和皮膚有顏色。白化變種海豚是非常罕見的。

In fact this specimen is believed to be only the second one ever put on display in an aquarium after it was purchased from fishermen.
事實上，據認爲這是有史以來在水族館展出的第二隻白化變種海豚，這隻海豚是從漁民那裏買來的。

And they may well have been doing the animal a favour, as albinos are easy prey out at sea as they lack the colouration to blend in like their grey coloured relatives.
漁民們把這隻海豚賣到水族館可能倒是幫了它一個大忙，因爲這隻海豚在海上很容易被捕獵者發現，因爲它不能像它灰色的同胞一樣混跡於大海中。

Experts said that it was remarkable that the animal had actually lived so long before ending up at the Taiji Whale Museum, in Higashimuro District, in southern Japan's Wakayama Prefecture.
專家表示，這隻海豚到太地町鯨魚博物館定居之前，能存活這麼長時間已經很令人驚奇。太地町鯨魚博物館位於日本和歌山縣南部的東牟婁郡。

Controversially, the creature was captured during the annual dolphin hunt in the town of Taiji.
這隻海豚是在太地町一年一度的海豚捕獵期間捕獲的，這一點頗具爭議性。

The town and the hunt was made notorious by the 2009 Oscar-winning documentary "The Cove," which shows fishermen herding dolphins into a cove either to be captured for aquariums or killed for meat.
2009年奧斯卡獲獎紀錄片《海豚灣》致使太地町的捕獵活動臭名昭著。紀錄片中展示了漁民們的捕獵活動，他們在一個小海灣裏圍捕海豚，要麼把它們抓起來送進水族館，要麼就殺掉吃肉。

It was reported that 1,218 dolphins and small whales were captured there in 2011, though it did not specify how many of those captured were killed.
據報道，在2011年海豚捕獵活動中捕到了1218只海豚和小鯨，但沒有明確說明其中有多少隻被殺。

But the rare albino was one that did survive.
不過這隻罕見的白化海豚是倖存者。

Since then it has become the subject of a detailed study by the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology and the Institute of Cetacean Research who recently published a paper on the fascinating creature.
其後，這隻海豚成爲了東京大學海洋科學技術專業和日本鯨類研究所的詳細研究課題，他們近期還發表了一篇關於這一迷人生物的論文。

Vocabulary

flushed: 激動的

bottlenose dolphin: 寬吻海豚

albino: 白化病者

melanin: 黑色素

aquarium: 水族館