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经济学人 | 养一只水獭做宠物？

萌宠菠菠乐园
2026-04-18 11:02

背景介绍：

谁都无法拒绝一只可爱的宠物，在我们身边最常见、也最受人喜欢的宠物就是小猫和小狗了。但如今，小猫和小狗似乎已经不能满足宠物爱好者的需求了，随着日本一只宠物水獭的走红，全球各地正在掀起饲养水獭作为宠物的热潮。那么，你会养一只水獭做宠物吗？

Demand for pet otters is driving a harmful trade

宠物水獭的热潮正在推动一项危害性贸易

The creatures are cute but make lousy pets

这些动物很可爱，但并不适合做宠物

Otters are cute, this no one can deny. They have big eyes and snub snouts and paws like tiny leedle hands. They look even cuter when they wear jaunty hats and toss food pellets into their mouths as if they were bar snacks, like Takechiyo, a pet otter in Japan. Documenting Takechiyo’s antics has earned his owner nearly 230,000 followers on Instagram, a photo-sharing app.

水獭很可爱，这是谁都无法否认的事实。它们有着大大的眼睛和翘翘的鼻子，还有着宛如小手一般的爪子。当顶着一头漂亮的毛发的水獭，像是吃零食一般地用爪子拿起食物丢进嘴里时（比如日本出名的宠物水獭竹千代），它们的样子就更可爱了。竹千代的主人通过在照片分享应用 Instagram 上分享它的可爱模样获得了近23万粉丝。

Takechiyo’s fame reflects a craze across east and South-East Asia for keeping the cuddly creatures as pets. Enthusiasts in Japan visit cafés where they pay to cuddle them; Indonesian owners parade their pets around on leads or go swimming with them, then share their pictures online.

竹千代的走红反映了东亚和东南亚地区掀起了将这种可爱的动物作为宠物饲养的热潮。日本的宠物爱好者会去水獭咖啡馆付费撸水獭；印尼的水獭饲养者会出门遛水獭，甚至和它们一起游泳，然后拍照并分享在网上。

But these jolly photos mask a trade that is doing a lot of damage. Even before they became fashionable companions for humans, Asia’s wild otters faced plenty of threats. Their habitats are disappearing. They have long been hunted for their coats, or culled by farmers who wish to prevent them feasting on fisheries.

但这些有趣的照片下隐藏着一个正在造成巨大破坏的行业。甚至在水獭成为人类时髦的伙伴之前，亚洲的野生水獭就已经面临着巨大的威胁。它们的栖息地正在逐渐消失。长期以来，猎人们为了获得皮毛一直对它们进行捕猎，渔夫也会对它们进行猎杀，以防止它们吃掉太多的鱼。

The pet trade, which began picking up in the early 2000s but appeared to accelerate a few years ago, has made things worse. The numbers of wild Asian small-clawed otters and smooth-coated otters, two species that are in highest demand, have declined by at least 30% in the three decades to 2019.

水獭的宠物贸易自21世纪初开始升温，但近几年似乎有所加速，这让情况变得更糟了。在截至2019年的30年里，需求最大的两种水獭（野生亚洲小爪水獭和光滑皮毛水獭）的数量至少下降了30%。

The international agreement that governs trade in wildlife, known as CITES, now prohibits cross-border trade in these species. But laws banning ownership are often poorly enforced, as in Thailand, or riddled with holes, as in Indonesia. And the otter-keeping fad has been turbocharged by the internet, says Vincent Nijman of Oxford Brookes University.

《国际濒危物种贸易公约》（管理野生动物贸易的一项国际协议）如今开始禁止这些物种的跨境贸易。但禁止所有权的法律往往执行不力，比如泰国；或者像印尼那样，法律漏洞百出。牛津布鲁克斯大学的文森特·尼曼表示，互联网掀起了一阵饲养水獭的热潮。

In 2017 TRAFFIC, a British charity that monitors the wildlife trade, spent nearly five months looking at Facebook and other social-media sites in five South-East Asian countries. During that time it found around 1,000 otters advertised for sale online.

2017年，监测野生动物贸易的英国慈善机构 TRAFFIC 花了近五个月的时间在五个东南亚国家的脸书和其他其他社交媒体网站上调查。在此期间，该机构发现大约有1000只水獭在网上被出售。

In any case, otters do not even make particularly good pets. Every year the Jakarta Animal Aid Network, a charity in Indonesia’s capital, receives some ten otters from people who have struggled to look after them.

无论如何，水獭都不是特别适合作为宠物。雅加达动物救助网(印尼首都的一个慈善机构) 每年都会收到大约10只水獭，这些水獭都来自于那些试图饲养水獭作为宠物的人们。

Faizul Duha, the founder of an Indonesian otter-owners’ group, admits that his two animals emit a “very specific” (read: fishy) smell. They bite humans and gnaw at furniture. Their screeching can be heard blocks away. And their cages need cleaning every two-to-three hours. That is how often they evacuate their bowels.

印尼水獭爱好者组织的创始人费祖尔·杜哈承认，他养的两只水獭都会散发一种“非常特殊”的气味（即鱼腥味）。它们会咬人，还会啃家具。几个街区外的人们都能听到它们的尖叫声。它们的笼子需要每两到三个小时清洗一次。这正是它们排便的频率。

(红色标注词为重难点词汇)

小编说

诚然，萌萌的水獭确实能够激发人们将其作为宠物饲养的想法，最早在日本走红的宠物水獭竹千代也正是凭借其可爱的模样受到了人们的喜爱。但实际上，由于与人类的生活习性存在巨大差异，水獭并不适合作为宠物来饲养。

重难点词汇：

lousy [ˈlaʊzi] adj. 恶劣的；讨厌的

cuddly [ˈkʌdli] adj. 令人想拥抱的；逗人喜爱的

evacuate [ɪˈvækjueɪt] v. 疏散；撤离；排泄

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