This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
这里是美国之音慢速英语农业报道。
People in a community on the Pacific coast in Southern California awoke last week to a sea of dead fish. About eight hundred fifty sailboats and powerboats come and go from the marina at King Harbor in the city of Redondo Beach. But the sardines that swam into the marina never swam out. Estimates put the number of dead fish in the millions.
上周，南加州太平洋沿岸人们一夜醒来后发现海中漂浮着大片死鱼。大约有850条帆船和摩托艇在雷东多比奇市（Redondo Beach）的国王码头（King Harbor）来来往往。但是游进码头的沙丁鱼再也没能游出来。据估计，死鱼数量已经达到数以百万计。
Local resident John Archibald described the smell this way.
当地居民约翰·阿奇博尔德这样形容这些死鱼的气味。
JOHN ARCHIBALD: "Not bad. But I would not be ordering any pizzas around here lately."
阿奇博尔德：“还好。但最近我不会在附近订任何匹萨。”
Reporter Pete Demetriou from KNX Newsradio in Los Angeles also spoke to another man who has lived in the area for twenty-six years.
洛杉矶KNX新闻电台记者皮特还采访了另一位在这里居住了26年的男子。
MAN: "The die-off was as bad as I've ever seen, but they cleaned up pretty quick, so there's not too much smell."
男子：“这次死鱼事件是我见过的最糟的一次。但他们清理得很快，所以没什么怪味。”
REPORTER: "Well, you've got a few fish on the top here but they're concerned that a lot of it may still be down there on the bottom. What do you do, do you try to clean it up or let it just basically decompose?"
记者：“水面上的死鱼已经清理了，但人们担心的是水底下可能还有很多死鱼。你会怎么做？继续清理水底下的死鱼，还是让它们自然分解？”
MAN : "No, you just let it go. The crabs will get it."
男子：“不用管，螃蟹会解决它们的。”。
He remembered that about five years ago there was another serious kill-off of fish in King Harbor. It was caused by a harmful algae bloom, a so-called red tide of microscopic organisms that spread from time to time. But this time scientists found no toxic algae in King Harbor, so it was a mystery.
他还记得大约5年前，国王码头也发生了一次严重的死鱼事件。当时是由赤潮这种有害生态现象引起的，这是一种不时爆发的微生物红潮。但这次科学家在国王码头并没有发现有毒藻类，因此这次鱼类的死因还是个迷。
On Friday a scientist at the University of Southern California released findings of continuing research in his laboratory. Professor David Caron said fish collected on March eighth, the day of the kill, tested "strongly positive" for domoic acid in their stomach contents. Domoic acid is a powerful neurotoxin produced by one kind of microalgae.
上周五南加州大学的一位科学家发布了他们实验室持续调查的结果。戴维·卡隆教授表示，对3月8日鱼类死亡事件当天采集到的死鱼检测显示，死鱼胃中残留物呈软骨藻酸“强阳性”。软骨藻酸是由一些微藻产生的强毒素。
Fish such as sardines and anchovy can get poisoned when they eat plankton that have eaten the algae.
沙丁鱼和鳀鱼等鱼类在捕食吃了这种藻类的浮游生物时引起中毒。
Researchers from USC confirmed that plankton collected about twenty kilometers southwest of Redondo Beach the next day had very high levels of domoic acid. This would support a theory that the fish became poisoned in coastal waters before entering the harbor.
南加州大学的研究人员证实，次日在雷东多比奇市西南20公里外采集的浮游生物中软骨藻酸含量很高。这就证实了一个理论，鱼类在进入国王码头之前的沿海水域中时就已中毒。
High levels of domoic acid in the sardines may have worsened the effects of oxygen loss in the water as the fish crowded into a limited space. Or the domoic acid may help explain why they entered the marina. Professor Caron said research shows that domoic acid poisoning can cause abnormal swimming in some kinds of fish.
沙丁鱼中高含量的软骨藻酸可能造成有限空间中鱼类的氧气消耗情况进一步恶化。软骨藻酸或许也有助于它们为什么进入码头。卡隆教授表示，研究人员证实，软骨藻酸可以导致某些鱼类的异常游动。
Harmful algae blooms are a common cause of fish kills. Domoic acid can also cause neurological disorders and death in animals that eat fish poisoned with the neurotoxin.
有害藻类大量繁殖是鱼类死亡的常见原因。软骨藻酸还可能造成吃了这些中毒鱼类的动物神经紊乱和死亡。