full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Asha de Vos: Why you should care about whale poo

Unscramble the Blue Letters


In the 1600s, there were so many right whales in Cape Cod Bay off the east coast of the U.S. that apparently you could walk across their bkacs from one end of the bay to the other. Today, they number in the hundreds, and they're endangered. Like them, many species of whales saw their neumrbs drastically reduced by 200 years of whilnag, where they were hunted and killed for their wahle meat, oil and whale bone.

We only have whales in our waters today because of the Save the Whales movement of the '70s. It was instrumental in stopping commercial whaling, and was bulit on the idea that if we couldn't save whales, what could we save? It was ultimately a test of our pitocaill abiltiy to halt environmental destruction. So in the early '80s, there was a ban on caemirmocl whaling that came into force as a result of this campaign. Whales in our waters are still low in numbers, however, because they do face a rngae of other human-induced threats.

Open Cloze


In the 1600s, there were so many right whales in Cape Cod Bay off the east coast of the U.S. that apparently you could walk across their _____ from one end of the bay to the other. Today, they number in the hundreds, and they're endangered. Like them, many species of whales saw their _______ drastically reduced by 200 years of _______, where they were hunted and killed for their _____ meat, oil and whale bone.

We only have whales in our waters today because of the Save the Whales movement of the '70s. It was instrumental in stopping commercial whaling, and was _____ on the idea that if we couldn't save whales, what could we save? It was ultimately a test of our _________ _______ to halt environmental destruction. So in the early '80s, there was a ban on __________ whaling that came into force as a result of this campaign. Whales in our waters are still low in numbers, however, because they do face a _____ of other human-induced threats.

Solution


  1. range
  2. numbers
  3. commercial
  4. political
  5. backs
  6. whale
  7. ability
  8. built
  9. whaling

Original Text


In the 1600s, there were so many right whales in Cape Cod Bay off the east coast of the U.S. that apparently you could walk across their backs from one end of the bay to the other. Today, they number in the hundreds, and they're endangered. Like them, many species of whales saw their numbers drastically reduced by 200 years of whaling, where they were hunted and killed for their whale meat, oil and whale bone.

We only have whales in our waters today because of the Save the Whales movement of the '70s. It was instrumental in stopping commercial whaling, and was built on the idea that if we couldn't save whales, what could we save? It was ultimately a test of our political ability to halt environmental destruction. So in the early '80s, there was a ban on commercial whaling that came into force as a result of this campaign. Whales in our waters are still low in numbers, however, because they do face a range of other human-induced threats.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
waters today 2
whales movement 2
commercial whaling 2
whale carcasses 2


Important Words


  1. ability
  2. apparently
  3. backs
  4. ban
  5. bay
  6. bone
  7. built
  8. campaign
  9. cape
  10. coast
  11. cod
  12. commercial
  13. destruction
  14. drastically
  15. early
  16. east
  17. endangered
  18. environmental
  19. face
  20. force
  21. halt
  22. hundreds
  23. hunted
  24. idea
  25. instrumental
  26. killed
  27. meat
  28. movement
  29. number
  30. numbers
  31. oil
  32. political
  33. range
  34. reduced
  35. result
  36. save
  37. species
  38. stopping
  39. test
  40. threats
  41. today
  42. ultimately
  43. walk
  44. waters
  45. whale
  46. whales
  47. whaling
  48. years