This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Julia Rosen.Don't worry about why the chicken crossed the road―the bigger question is whether it'll make it at all.Every year, millions of animals get killed by vehicles in the U.S.But that road risk has dropped because of the COVID pandemic."We're aware of negative impacts on the economy, family relations.I'm sitting in my living room, and I don't see as much of my family as I normally would. You know, so there's a lot of negative impacts.But the positive impacts are becoming more clear.And that could really change the discussion after the pandemic―change some of our assumptions about how much driving we should do if we want to protect nature, wildlife, air quality, climate change, and so forth."Fraser Shilling, co-director of the Road Ecology Center at the University of California, Davis.When officials began issuing stay-at-home orders to slow the spread of COVID-19,Shilling and his colleagues quickly realized they were witnessing a novel experiment: What happens when we all start driving way less?The answer is a lot of things, including fewer accidents and lower greenhouse gas emissions from cars.In their latest report, the researchers found that driving less has also led to a dramatic decrease in roadkills in three states for which they had long-term data: Idaho, Maine and California."It's actually the largest conservation action that the U.S. has ever taken, as far as I'm aware, since creation of the national parks."
这里是科学美国人――60秒科学系列，我是朱莉娅・罗森。不要担心鸡为什么过马路，更大的问题是鸡能不能过得去。美国每年都有数百万只动物因交通工具致死。但由于新冠肺炎疫情，这种道路交通风险有所降低。“我们意识到经济和家庭关系受到的负面影响。我坐在客厅里，见到家人的频率也没有正常情况下多。因此，存在大量负面影响。但正面影响正变得越来越明显。正面影响可能会真正改变疫情后的讨论，会改变我们的一些假设，即如果我们想保护自然、野生动物、空气质量、气候变化等，我们应该将驾驶控制在何种程度。”加州大学戴维斯分校的道路生态中心联合主任弗雷泽・希林说到。官员开始发布居家令以减缓新冠肺炎的传播时，希林及其同事很快意识到他们正在见证一项新奇的实验：我们都开始少开车时会发生什么？答案涉及很多方面，包括交通事故减少、汽车排放的温室气体降低等。在他们的最新报告中，研究人员发现，在爱达荷州、缅因州和加利福尼亚州这三个他们拥有长期数据的州，少开车还令道路死亡人数大幅减少。“据我所知，这国家公园建立以来，美国采取的最大规模的保护行动。”
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