殺処分 ― cull

宮崎県で確認された鳥インフルエンザ、約41万羽の殺処分を開始したというニュースがトップニュースになっています。

今日の単語、"cull"は”間引きする”という意味がありますが、語源はよく知られた動詞である"collect"（集める、収集する）と同じです。

間引きする、にしても、集めるにしても、必要条件を満たすものを取り分けておく、という意味合いに捉えるのが自然ですが、選り分けられるのは何もいい方ばかりではなくて、必要条件を満たさないものを取り除く目的で取り分けておく、という意味でもあるようです。辞書に”殺処分”という訳語は見えませんが、良品ｖｓ不良品という2項対立的な概念で言えば、"cull"という動詞の対象は良品と不良品の両方でありうるということでしょうか。


With an avian flu outbreak in 2007 and a foot-and-mouth epidemic in 2010, the livestock farmers of Miyazaki Prefecture have had a rough time of it lately. But just when things seemed they couldn’t get worse, they did: An outbreak of pathogenic bird flu virus has hit the area.

Some 410,000 chickens are expected to be culled over the next few days in the prefecture. That comes after 20 chickens were found dead Jan. 23, and a simple examination of six of the birds found five as being infected by the H5N1 virus in the southern Japanese prefecture that’s famous for its agricultural produce, and one of the top producers of poultry in the country.

The ongoing cull follows that of 10,200 chickens over the weekend after 36 of the birds were discovered dead Jan. 21 in a separate farm 8.5km away. The government has ordered for all birds and eggs within 10km of the farms to be destroyed and has agreed to deploy 170 members of the Ground Self-Defense force to help with the process. While the chickens culled over the weekend were incinerated, the 410,000 birds doomed in the latest episode are simply too many for incineration –- the bodies will be buried instead.
(Yuri Tomikawa. Bird Flu Blow to Miyazaki. The Wall Street Journal. January 25, 2011.)