The strange story of the teddy bear and what it reveals | Jon Mooallem

Translator: Hafizh Alfarisi Reviewer: Maria Nainggolan

Pada musim gugur tahun 1902,

Presiden Theodore Roosevelt perlu rehat dari Gedung Putih.

Dia pun menaiki kereta ke Mississippi

So it was the fall of 1902,

untuk berburu beruang hitam kecil di pinggiran kota bernama Smedes.

and President Theodore Roosevelt

needed a little break from the White House,

Hari pertama berburu, tak tampak seekor beruang.

so he took a train to Mississippi

Semua sungguh kecewa.

to do a little black bear hunting outside of a town

Namun, hari kedua,

para anjing menyudutkan seekor usai pengejaran panjang.

called Smedes.

The first day of the hunt, they didn't see a single bear,

Tapi, saat itu, presiden menyerah dan kembali ke kemah untuk makan siang

so it was a big bummer for everyone,

but the second day, the dogs cornered one

Pemandu berburunya memukul hewan itu tepat di kepala dengan senapannya,

after a really long chase, but by that point,

the president had given up

lalu mengikat beruang itu di pohon.

and gone back to camp for lunch,

Dia meniup terompetnya untuk memanggil Roosevelt kembali

so his hunting guide cracked the animal

dan memberinya kehormatan menembak si beruang.

on the top of the head with the butt of his rifle,

Beruang itu betina.

and then tied it up to a tree

and started tooting away on his bugle

Ia linglung, terluka,

to call Roosevelt back so he could have the honor

sangat kurus, agak tampak lusuh.

of shooting it.

Saat Roosevelt melihat hewan ini terikat di pohon,

The bear was a female.

It was dazed, injured,

dia tak tega menembaknya.

severely underweight, a little mangy-looking,

Dia merasa melanggar kode etiknya sebagai olahragawan.

and when Roosevelt saw this animal

Beberapa hari berikutnya, peristiwa itu diabadikan

tied up to the tree,

he just couldn't bring himself to fire at it.

dalam kartun politik di Washington Post.

He felt like that would go against his code

Judulnya “Menggambar batas di Mississippi”.

as a sportsman.

Di sini Roosevelt menurunkan senapan dan mengulur tangan

A few days later, the scene was memorialized

in a political cartoon back in Washington.

membiarkan beruang itu hidup.

Beruangnya bertumpu pada dua kaki belakang dengan mata besarnya yang ketakutan

It was called "Drawing a Line in Mississippi,"

dan kuping menegang di atas kepalanya.

and it showed Roosevelt with his gun down and his arm out,

Beruang itu tak berdaya, seolah kau ingin memeluknya dan menenangkannya.

sparing the bear's life,

and the bear was sitting on its hind legs

with these two big, frightened, wide eyes

Mungkin kala itu masih asing, tapi jika kalian mencari kartunnya sekarang,

and little ears pricked up at the top of its head.

It looked really helpless, like you just wanted to

kalian akan langsung mengenali hewan ini

sweep it up into your arms

sebagai teddy bear.

and reassure it.

Itulah asal mula teddy bear.

It wouldn't have looked familiar at the time,

but if you go looking for the cartoon now,

Pembuat mainan mengambil kartun si beruang, mengubahnya jadi boneka

you recognize the animal right away:

dan menamakannya dari Presiden Roosevelt: Teddy’s bear.

It's a teddy bear.

And this is how the teddy bear was born.

Agak lucu rasanya aku berdiri di panggung ini,

Essentially, toymakers took the bear from the cartoon,

turned it into a plush toy, and then named it

memutuskan meluangkan waktuku untuk menceritakan

after President Roosevelt -- Teddy's bear.

kisah seabad dari penemuan boneka anak.

And I do feel a little ridiculous

that I'm up here on this stage

Namun, aku berani bilang bahwa di balik kisah penemuan teddy bear,

and I'm choosing to use my time

to tell you about a 100-year-old story

about the invention of a squishy kid's toy,

ada kisah yang lebih penting.

Kisah bagaimana pandangan kita tentang alam bisa berubah total.

but I'd argue that the invention of the teddy bear,

Juga tentang bagaimana, di bumi kita sekarang,

inside that story is a more important story,

kisah yang kita sampaikan mengubah alam secara luas.

a story about how dramatically our ideas

about nature can change,

Pikirkanlah soal teddy bear.

and also about how, on the planet right now,

Jika melihat ke belakang, boneka itu sangat wajar

the stories that we tell

karena beruang imut dan menggemaskan.

Siapa yang enggan memberi anaknya boneka itu.

are dramatically changing nature.

Because think about the teddy bear.

Namun, kenyataannya pada tahun 1902, beruang tak imut dan menggemaskan.

For us, in retrospect, it feels like an obvious fit,

because bears are so cute and cuddly,

Rupanya sama, tapi tak satu pun berpikir demikian.

and who wouldn't want to give one to their kids to play with,

Pada 1902, beruang dianggap monster.

but the truth is that in 1902,

Mereka makhluk yang sangat ditakuti anak-anak.

bears weren't cute and cuddly.

I mean, they looked the same,

Hingga beberapa generasi saat itu, beruang dikaitkan dengan segala bahaya

but no one thought of them that way.

In 1902, bears were monsters.

yang orang-orang temui di perbatasan.

Bears were something that frickin' terrified kids.

Pemerintahan federal secara sistematis memberantas beruang

For generations at that point,

the bear had been a shorthand for all the danger

dan banyak predator lainnya juga, seperti coyote dan serigala.

that people were encountering on the frontier,

Hewan-hewan ini dicap berbahaya.

and the federal government was actually

Mereka disebut pembunuh karena mereka membunuh ternak warga.

systematically exterminating bears

and lots of other predators too,

Seorang biologis pemerintahan menerangkan perang terhadap hewan, seperti beruang,

like coyotes and wolves.

These animals, they were being demonized.

They were called murderers

ada karena hewan-hewan tak lagi punya tempat dalam peradaban kita yang maju.

because they killed people's livestock.

One government biologist, he explained this

Karenanya, kita sekadar menyingkirkan mereka dari tempat kita.

war on animals like the bear by saying

that they no longer had a place

Dalam periode sepuluh tahun, hampir setengah juta serigala dihabisi.

in our advancing civilization,

and so we were just clearing them out of the way.

Tak lama, beruang grizzly dimusnahkan dari 95 persen habitat aslinya.

In one 10-year period, close to half a million wolves

Dulunya, ada pula 30 juta bison yang melewati dataran luas

had been slaughtered.

The grizzly would soon be wiped out

dan ada cerita kereta yang harus berhenti empat hingga lima jam

from 95 percent of its original territory,

untuk menunggu rombongan besar hewan ini melewati rel.

and whereas once there had been 30 million bison

moving across the plains, and you would have

Pada 1902, mungkin kurang dari seratus bison yang tersisa di alam liar.

these stories of trains having to stop

for four or five hours so that these thick,

living rivers of the animals could pour over the tracks,

Yang ingin kusampaikan adalah teddy bear lahir

now, by 1902, there were maybe less than 100 left in the wild.

di tengah operasi pemusnahan massal yang singkat ini.

Hal ini bisa jadi tanda bahwa nurani sebagian orang

And so what I'm saying is, the teddy bear was born

mulai merasakan pertentangan akan pembunuhan itu.

into the middle of this great spasm of extermination,

Amerika masih membenci dan takut beruang.

and you can see it as a sign that

maybe some people deep down

Namun, Amerika tiba-tiba ingin memberinya pelukan erat.

were starting to feel conflicted about all that killing.

Inilah yang kutanyakan di beberapa tahun terakhir.

America still hated the bear and feared it,

Bagaimana kita memandang hewan, apa yang dipikir dan dirasa pada mereka,

but all of a sudden, America also wanted

to give the bear a great big hug.

serta bagaimana wujud mereka digambarkan lalu diubah dalam benak kita.

So this is something that I've been really curious about in the last few years.

Kita hidup di tengah carut-marut pembantaian

How do we imagine animals,

how do we think and feel about them,

and how do their reputations get written

di mana setengah spesies bumi bisa saja lenyap di akhir abad ini.

and then rewritten in our minds?

Lalu, kenapa kita malah peduli dengan beberapa spesies daripada yang lainnya?

We're here living in the eye of a great storm

of extinction where half the species on the planet

Ada cabang ilmu sosial yang cukup baru, yang mulai mencari jawaban pertanyaan ini

could be gone by the end of the century,

and so why is it that we come to care about

serta mencoba mengungkap hubungan kuat dan terkadang agak abnormal

some of those species and not others?

yang kita rasakan terhadap hewan.

Well, there's a new field, a relatively new field

Aku menghabiskan banyak waktu membaca jurnal akademik mereka.

of social science that started looking at

these questions and trying to unpack the powerful

Yang bisa kukatakan adalah penemuan mereka sungguh luas.

and sometimes pretty schizophrenic relationships

that we have to animals,

Beberapa temuan yang kusukai adalah

and I spent a lot of time looking through

makin sering orang menonton acara TV di utara New York,

their academic journals,

and all I can really say is that their findings

makin ngeri dia diserang beruang hitam.

are astonishingly wide-ranging.

Jika kalian memperlihatkan harimau ke orang Amerika,

So some of my favorites include that

the more television a person watches in Upstate New York,

kemungkinannya mereka menganggap hewan itu betina dan bukan jantan.

the more he or she is afraid

Dalam studi yang meletakkan ular palsu dan kura-kura palsu di tepi jalan,

of being attacked by a black bear.

If you show a tiger to an American,

pengemudi lebih banyak melindas ular.

they're much more likely to assume that it's female

Sekitar tiga persen yang melindas hewan palsu itu

and not male.

In a study where a fake snake

tampak sengaja melakukannya.

and a fake turtle were put on the side of the road,

Wanita lebih mungkin daripada pria

drivers hit the snake much more often than the turtle,

memantik “sensasi ajaib” ketika melihat lumba-lumba berselancar.

and about three percent of drivers who hit the fake animals

Sekitar 68 persen ibu yang merasa begitu layak dan berharga

seemed to do it on purpose.

Women are more likely than men to get a

"magical feeling" when they see dolphins in the surf.

merasa dekat dengan kucing menari

dalam iklan Purina. (Tawa)

Sixty-eight percent of mothers with

Orang Amerika menganggap lobster

"high feelings of entitlement and self-esteem"

lebih penting dari merpati tapi juga lebih bodoh.

identified with the dancing cats

Kalkun liar dipandang sedikit lebih berbahaya dari berang-berang laut.

in a commercial for Purina. (Laughter)

Americans consider lobsters

Dan panda dua kali lebih manis daripada kumbang.

more important than pigeons

but also much, much stupider.

Wild turkeys are seen as only slightly more dangerous than sea otters,

Sebagian terkait rupa, kan?

Kita cenderung bersimpati pada hewan yang mirip kita.

and pandas are twice as lovable as ladybugs.

Terutama yang mirip bayi manusia, dengan dua mata besar ke depan

dan wajah bundar, agak bertubuh gempal.

So some of this is physical, right?

We tend to sympathize more with animals that look like us,

Itu kenapa saat bibinya ayah ibu di Minnesota memberi kartu Natal,

and especially that resemble human babies,

ada gambar penguin kecil berbulu di situ, bukannya laba-laba serigala teluk gletser.

so with big, forward-facing eyes

and circular faces,

kind of a roly-poly posture.

(Tawa) Tapi, ini bukan soal rupa, kan?

This is why, if you get a Christmas card from, like,

Ada dimensi budaya dalam pandangan kita akan hewan

your great aunt in Minnesota,

there's usually a fuzzy penguin chick on it,

and not something like a Glacier Bay wolf spider.

dan kita menceritakan kisah hewan ini.

Seperti semua kisah,

But it's not all physical, right?

masing-masing dibentuk waktu dan tempat kita menceritakannya.

There's a cultural dimension to how we think about animals,

Pikirkan momen pada 1902 ketika beruang ganas menjadi teddy bear.

and we're telling stories about these animals,

and like all stories,

they are shaped by the times and the places

Apa konteksnya?

in which we're telling them.

Amerika dalam masa urbanisasi.

So think about that moment

Untuk pertama kali, hampir semua orang tinggal di kota,

back in 1902 again where a ferocious bear

jadi ada jarak yang melebar antara kita dan alam.

became a teddy bear.

What was the context? Well, America was urbanizing.

Ada ruang aman untuk kita merenungkan dan meromantisisasi beruang.

For the first time, nearly a majority of people lived in cities,

Alam baru bisa terlihat sesuci dan semanis ini

so there was a growing distance between us and nature.

karena kita tak perlu takut terhadapnya lagi.

There was a safe space where we could

Kalian bisa melihat siklusnya berkembang berulang kali dengan semua jenis hewan.

reconsider the bear and romanticize it.

Nature could only start to seem this pure and adorable

Kita seakan selalu terjebak di antara

because we didn't have to be afraid of it anymore.

sikap menjelekkan dan niat membasmi suatu spesies.

And you can see that cycle playing out

Saat kita nyaris melakukannya,

kita berempati dengan menganggapnya makhluk kecil

again and again with all kinds of animals.

It seems like we're always stuck between

dan ingin menunjukkannya rasa iba.

demonizing a species and wanting to wipe it out,

Kita menggunakan kekuatan kita, tapi kemudian kita dibuat risih

and then when we get very close to doing that,

empathizing with it as an underdog

dengan seberapa kuatnya kita.

and wanting to show it compassion.

Sebagai contoh, ini satu dari ribuan surat dan gambar

So we exert our power,

but then we're unsettled

yang anak-anak kirim ke kantor Bush demi perlindungan beruang kutub

by how powerful we are.

lewat UU Spesies Terancam.

So for example, this is one of

Surat-surat ini dikirim pada pertengahan 2000-an

probably thousands of letters and drawings

saat kesadaran perubahan iklim membludak.

that kids sent to the Bush administration,

Terus muncul gambar beruang kutub

begging it to protect the polar bear

terjebak di pulau es kecil dengan tampang muram.

under the Endangered Species Act,

and these were sent back in the mid-2000s,

Berhari-hari kuamati semua berkas.

Aku menyukainya. Ini yang paling kusuka.

when awareness of climate change was suddenly surging.

Bisa dilihat ada beruang kutub yang tenggelam.

We kept seeing that image of a polar bear

stranded on a little ice floe

Ia dimakan bersamaan oleh lobster dan hiu.

looking really morose.

I spent days looking through these files.

I really love them. This one's my favorite.

Surat ini dari anak bernama Frizt.

If you can see, it's a polar bear that's drowning

Dia bahkan punya solusi perubahan iklim yang bertumpu pada etanol.

and then it's also being eaten simultaneously

by a lobster and a shark.

Dia bilang, “Aku merasa sedih dengan beruang kutub.

Aku suka beruang kutub.

This one came from a kid named Fritz,

Semua orang bisa memakai jus jagung sebagai bensin mobil. Dari Fritz.”

and he's actually got a solution to climate change.

He's got it all worked out to an ethanol-based solution.

He says, "I feel bad about the polar bears.

Dua abad lalu, penjelajah Arktika menulis kisah beruang kutub

I like polar bears.

Everyone can use corn juice for cars. From Fritz."

yang melompat ke kapal untuk melahap mereka,

bahkan ketika hewan itu dibakar.

So 200 years ago, you would have Arctic explorers

Anak-anak ini tak memandangnya demikian.

Mereka pun tak memandangnya sama sepertiku pada tahun 80-an.

writing about polar bears leaping into their boats

and trying to devour them,

Bagi kami, hewan-hewan ini

even if they lit the bear on fire,

adalah tuan tanah Arktika yang misterius dan mengerikan.

but these kids don't see the polar bear that way,

Namun, lihatlah betapa cepat perubahan iklim

and actually they don't even see the polar bear

the way that I did back in the '80s.

membalikkan citra hewan itu di benak kita.

I mean, we thought of these animals

Hewan itu berubah dari pembunuh manusia yang ganas

as mysterious and terrifying lords of the Arctic.

ke korban tenggelam yang rapuh.

But look now how quickly that climate change

has flipped the image of the animal in our minds.

Jika dipikir lagi, itulah kesimpulan kisah yang dimulai oleh teddy bear pada 1902.

It's gone from that bloodthirsty man-killer

to this delicate, drowning victim,

Sebab, saat itu, Amerika kurang lebih telah menduduki sebagian benua.

and when you think about it, that's kind of

the conclusion to the story

Kita selangkah lagi memusnahkan para predator buas terakhir ini.

that the teddy bear started telling back in 1902,

Sekarang, cakupan masyarakat telah meluas hingga ke puncak dunia.

because back then, America had more or less

conquered its share of the continent.

We were just getting around to

Hal ini membuat beruang paling tak terjamah dan kuat di bumi

polishing off these last wild predators.

Now, society's reach has expanded

tampak seperti korban menggemaskan dan tak bersalah.

all the way to the top of the world,

and it's made even these, the most remote,

Namun, ada pula kelanjutan dari kisah teddy bear

the most powerful bears on the planet,

yang tak banyak dibicarakan.

Kita akan membicarakannya.

seem like adorable and blameless victims.

Sebab, meski tak butuh lama usai perburuan Roosevelt pada 1902

But you know, there's also a postscript to the teddy bear story

bagi boneka itu untuk menjadi populer,

that not a lot of people talk about.

banyak yang menyadari boneka itu hanya sesaat,

We're going to talk about it,

sekadar barang politik konyol

because even though it didn't really take long

after Roosevelt's hunt in 1902

dan akan menghilang usai sang presiden menjabat.

for the toy to become a full-blown craze,

Pada 1909, saat penerus Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, hendak dilantik

most people figured it was a fad,

it was a sort of silly political novelty item

and it would go away once the president left office,

industri mainan dalam pencarian hewan populer berikutnya.

and so by 1909, when Roosevelt's successor,

Mereka tidak berhasil.

William Howard Taft,

Januari tahun itu, Taft menjadi tamu kehormatan pada perjamuan di Atlanta.

was getting ready to be inaugurated,

the toy industry was on the hunt

for the next big thing.

Beberapa hari sebelum itu, menu makanannya jadi berita besar.

They didn't do too well.

Mereka hendak menyajikan hidangan khas Selatan

That January, Taft was the guest of honor

bernama “possum dan tater”.

at a banquet in Atlanta,

and for days in advance,

Hidangan ini berupa oposum utuh yang dipanggang di atas lapis ubi.

the big news was the menu.

They were going to be serving him

a Southern specialty, a delicacy, really,

Kadang mereka tidak melepas ekor besarnya sehingga terlihat seperti mi tebal.

called possum and taters.

So you would have a whole opossum

Oposum yang disajikan ke meja Taft berbobot delapan kilogram.

roasted on a bed of sweet potatoes,

and then sometimes they'd leave

(Sorak iba)

Setelah makan, orkes mulai bermain dan hadirin bernyanyi.

the big tail on it like a big, meaty noodle.

The one brought to Taft's table

Tiba-tiba, Taft dikejutkan oleh pemberian hadiah

weighed 18 pounds.

So after dinner, the orchestra started to play,

oleh sekelompok pendukung setempat.

Hadiahnya adalah boneka oposum; matanya mungil dan kupingnya tak berbulu.

and the guests burst into song,

and all of a sudden, Taft was surprised

with the presentation of a gift

Boneka itu merupakan produk baru yang mereka ajukan

from a group of local supporters,

sebagai jawaban atas kepresidenan William Taft

and this was a stuffed opossum toy,

all beady-eyed and bald-eared,

terhadap teddy bear milik Teddy Roosevelt.

and it was a new product they were putting forward

Mereka menyebutnya “billy possum”.

to be the William Taft presidency's answer

Dalam waktu 24 jam, perusahaan Georgia Billy Possum lahir dan beroperasi,

to Teddy Roosevelt's teddy bear.

They were calling it the "billy possum."

menyepakati penjualan ke seluruh negeri.

Los Angeles Times mengabarkan dengan yakin

Within 24 hours, the Georgia Billy Possum Company

bahwa “Teddy bear telah turun jabatan

was up and running, brokering deals

for these things nationwide,

dan selama empat atau mungkin delapan tahun,

and the Los Angeles Times announced,

anak-anak di Amerika Serikat akan bermain dengan billy possum.”

very confidently, "The teddy bear

has been relegated to a seat in the rear,

Dari saat itu, sempat ada demam oposum.

and for four years, possibly eight,

Ada kartu pos dan pin billy possum,

the children of the United States

pitcher krim billy possum untuk sesi ngopi.

will play with billy possum."

Ada billy possum kecil di ujung stik yang bisa anak kibarkan seperti bendera.

So from that point, there was a fit of opossum fever.

There were billy possum postcards, billy possum pins,

(Tawa)

Meski dengan segala pemasaran ini,

billy possum pitchers for your cream at coffee time.

hidup billy possum sayangnya sangat singkat.

There were smaller billy possums on a stick

that kids could wave around like flags.

Mainannya gagal total dan nyaris dilupakan sepenuhnya

But even with all this marketing,

the life of the billy possum

pada akhir tahun itu.

turned out to be just pathetically brief.

Itu artinya billy possum tak sempat menjumpai hari Natal,

yang jika dipikir lagi, jadi semacam tragedi bagi sebuah mainan.

The toy was an absolute flop,

and it was almost completely forgotten

by the end of the year,

(Tawa)

and what that means is that the billy possum

Kita simpulkan kegagalan itu dalam dua cara.

Pertama, cukup jelas.

didn't even make it to Christmastime,

which when you think about it is

Kukatakan saja terus terang.

a special sort of tragedy for a toy.

Oposum itu buruk rupa.

(Tawa)

So we can explain that failure two ways.

Mungkin yang lebih penting kisah billy possum salah dari awal,

The first, well, it's pretty obvious.

I'm going to go ahead and say it out loud anyway:

Opossums are hideous. (Laughter)

terutama bila dibandingkan dengan latar belakang teddy bear.

But maybe more importantly is that

Pikirkan hampir sepanjang sejarah evolusi manusia,

the story of the billy possum was all wrong,

yang membuat beruang mengesankan adalah mereka tak bergantung kepada kita.

especially compared

to the backstory of the teddy bear.

Mereka menjalani hidup yang sederajat sebagai ancaman dan saingan.

Think about it: for most of human's evolutionary history,

what's made bears impressive to us

Ketika Roosevelt berburu di Mississippi, status itu telah dihancurkan

has been their complete independence from us.

It's that they live these parallel lives

dan hewan yang diikat ke pohon itu merupakan simbol bagi semua beruang.

as menaces and competitors.

By the time Roosevelt went hunting in Mississippi,

Entah hewan itu hidup atau mati saat ini

that stature was being crushed,

sepenuhnya tergantung pada belas kasih atau ketidakpedulian orang-orang.

and the animal that he had roped to a tree

really was a symbol for all bears.

Hal itu jadi pertanda buruk bagi masa depan beruang,

Whether those animals lived or died now

was entirely up to the compassion

sekaligus jadi pertanyaan meresahkan akan jadi apa kita kelak

or the indifference of people.

jika keberlangsungan hewan seperti itu saja

That said something really ominous

about the future of bears,

ada di tangan kita sekarang.

Sekarang, seabad kemudian, jika kalian mengamati apa yang terjadi di luar sana,

but it also said something very unsettling about who we'd become,

if the survival of even an animal like that

kalian akan merasa lebih tidak nyaman dari sebelumnya.

was up to us now.

Kita hidup di zaman yang ilmuwan mulai namakan ”bergantung konservasi”.

So now, a century later, if you're at all

paying attention to what's happening in the environment,

you feel that discomfort so much more intensely.

Istilah itu berarti kita telah mengubah terlalu jauh

hingga alam tak bisa berdiri sendiri lagi.

We're living now in an age of what scientists

Kebanyakan spesies terancam hanya bisa bertahan

have started to call "conservation reliance,"

and what that term means is that we've disrupted

jika kita berada di luar sana untuk membantu menyediakan habitat mereka.

so much that nature can't possibly stand on its own anymore,

Jadi, kita turun tangan dan tak akan pernah bisa lepas tangan.

and most endangered species

are only going to survive

if we stay out there in the landscape

Sungguh banyak yang harus dilakukan.

riggging the world around them in their favor.

Sekarang, kita melatih kondor agar tak bertengger di kabel listrik.

So we've gone hands-on

and we can't ever take our hands off,

Kita melatih bangau Amerika Utara

and that's a hell of a lot of work.

bermigrasi ke selatan untuk musim dingin mengikuti pesawat ultraringan kecil.

Right now, we're training condors

Kita memberi vaksin wabah pada ferret.

not to perch on power lines.

We teach whooping cranes to migrate south for the winter

Kita memonitor kelinci pygmy lewat drone.

behind little ultra-light airplanes.

We're out there feeding plague vaccine to ferrets.

Kita beralih dari memusnahkan spesies

ke mengawasi keselamatan banyak spesies tanpa batas waktu.

We monitor pygmy rabbits with drones.

So we've gone from annihilating species

Hewan yang mana? Yang kita sebarkan cerita menariknya,

to micromanaging the survival of a lot of species

yang kita pilih untuk dipertahankan.

Batas antara konservasi dan domestikasi pun jadi samar.

indefinitely, and which ones?

Well, the ones that we've told

compelling stories about,

the ones we've decided ought to stick around.

Yang kumaksud ialah kisah hewan liar yang kita ceritakan begitu subjektif.

The line between conservation and domestication

Kisah itu bisa jadi tak logis, diromantisisasi, atau sensasional.

is blurred.

So what I've been saying is that the stories

Kadang kisah itu tak berkaitan dengan kenyataan.

that we tell about wild animals are so subjective

Tapi, di dunia yang bergantung konservasi,

they can be irrational

or romanticized or sensationalized.

kisah itu punya dampak yang sungguh nyata.

Sometimes they just have nothing to do with the facts.

Sebab, bagaimana perasaan kita pada hewan memengaruhi keberlangsungannya

But in a world of conservation reliance,

lebih dari apa pun yang kalian baca di buku studi ekologi.

those stories have very real consequences,

because now, how we feel about an animal

Bercerita itu penting sekarang.

affects its survival

Perasaan itu penting.

more than anything that you read about

Imajinasi kita telah menjadi kekuatan ekologi.

in ecology textbooks.

Storytelling matters now.

Mungkin teddy bear mengambil bagiannya

Emotion matters.

karena legenda Roosevelt dan beruang di Mississippi jadi semacam alegori

Our imagination has become an ecological force.

akan tanggung jawab besar bahwa masyarakat baru menghadapinya saat itu juga.

And so maybe the teddy bear worked in part

because the legend of Roosevelt

and that bear in Mississippi

Butuh 71 tahun lagi sebelum UU Spesies Terancam Punah disahkan.

was kind of like an allegory

of this great responsibility that society

Terlepas dari itu, keseluruhan etos ini

was just beginning to face up to back then.

diurai menjadi sesuatu seperti gambar di jendela kaca patri.

It would be another 71 years

before the Endangered Species Act was passed,

Si beruang jadi korban yang terikat di pohon

but really, here's its whole ethos

dan sang presiden Amerika Serikat memilih membiarkannya hidup.

boiled down into something like a scene

you'd see in a stained glass window.

The bear is a helpless victim tied to a tree,

Terima kasih.

(Tepuk Tangan)

and the president of the United States

[Ilustrasi oleh Wendy MacNaughton]

decided to show it some mercy.

Thank you.

(Applause)

[Illustrations by Wendy MacNaughton]