《中英對照讀新聞》New Case of Mad Cow Spurs Talk of Tracking 新狂牛病例激發呼籲追蹤聲浪

◎ 陳宜君

The latest case of mad cow disease has brought new talk of a national livestock tracking system, something the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee says the beef industry can create more quickly than the government.

最新一起狂牛症病例已經引發新一波建立全國牲畜追蹤系統的聲浪，眾議院農業委員會主席表示，牛肉業者可比政府更快速建立此一系統。

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said a system to track the movements of the nation's 96 million cattle needs to be running “as soon as possible.” The government's goal is to make a system mandatory by January 2009, but Goodlatte said the industry can create a tracking system more swiftly. “That will get us into an animal identification system much faster than what the USDA is talking about,” he said.

維吉尼亞州共和黨籍眾議員巴伯．古德拉特表示，追蹤全國九千六百萬頭牛隻動向的系統必須「盡快」運作。政府的目標是在二○○九年一月建立一個強制性系統，但古德拉特說業者可以更迅速建立一個追蹤系統。「這將讓我們以比美國農業部所談論的計畫還要快上許多的速度，建立一個動物識別系統，」他表示。

The dominant cattle ranchers' group, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, is creating its own identification system. The plan is to test the system starting Oct. 1, then have it up and running by October 2006.

最主要的牛隻牧場經營者團體「全國養牛業者牛肉協會」正在建立自己的識別系統。此計畫是從十月一日開始測試該系統，然後使其擴大，並在二○○六年十月運作。

新聞辭典

spur：本文標題中當動詞用，有激發、使再接再厲的意思。例句：She spurred her team on to greater efforts. （她鼓勵她的團隊更加努力。）本字亦可當名詞，最常見的解釋是指馬刺；美國職籃（NBA）聖安東尼奧馬刺隊即為the San Antonio Spurs。

Rep.：即representative的縮寫，文中意指眾議員。美國國會分為眾議院（即House of Representatives）與參議院（Senate）。參議員是senator。

R-Va：此處的R是指共和黨（the Republican Party，民主黨則是the Democratic Party）。Va是維吉尼亞（Virginia）州的縮寫。

USDA：即the United States Department of Agriculture（美國農業部）的縮寫。