Wildlife special: a quiz and a story
This week’s Lighter Side has a quiz and a story on wildlife. Before we get there, here’s a video that I would really love for you to watch. This is an excerpt of a podcast recording I did with two children. It was a 20-questions game style episode on Space. I gave them 2 lines at the beginning and then they tried to guess the rest of the story.
Excited to find out more about why SpaceX and NASA want to DESTROY the International Space Station? Listen to the podcast episode (14 mins). It’s always a great idea to get your pencil / colour pens out and sketch while you listen. If you like what you sketch, please do share it with me via email at hello@wsnt.in. I would be thrilled to share your art work with the rest of the world on our Instagram page.
Wildlife Quiz
There are 5 questions related to wildlife. The correct answers are at the end of the wildlife story.
Answers to the quiz are at the end of this story
Wildlife story - all about singing whales
On the topic of wildlife stories, the famous singing humpback whales have made huge recoveries!
For 30 years, Ted Cheeseman worked as a naturalist. He used to guide trips on boats around Antarctica. That meant looking for whales, which wasn't easy in the early 1990s. Humpback whales had pretty much vanished from the face of this earth by then. 100 years earlier, huge ships sailed out into the seas carrying harpoons. The mariners killed the whales for their oil and their meat. The horrors of their acts were unknown to most people as Youtube and Instagram did not exist in the 1900s and 1940s. Nobody was going to record these acts on cameras and share them with fellow humans.
Thankfully, a few sensible people lived on planet Earth then. Some of them were also political leaders of countries. These few sensible people got together and banned commercial whaling (i.e. killing whales for their meat etc.). Ted Cheeseman still saw little change after more than 20 years of the ban.
But, one evening in 2005, he saw a group of 5 whales swimming together in the Antarctica. That was the first time he saw such large numbers. Ten years later, it had become a daily occurrence. Humpback whales had grown in numbers across the globe. Today, they are back to being the same number they were, about a hundred years ago. Ted Cheeseman can hardly stop smiling.
But, one news story he read recently has brought back a grim look on his face. Japan plans to re-introduce commercial whaling of one type of whales - the fin whales! Here is how Japan has tried to convince the world why it should. Are you convinced?
What do you think of Japan’s plan to commercially hunt the fin-whales? Drop me a comment below or send me an email to hello@wsnt.in with your views?
Answers to the wildlife quiz
Qn.1) Caterpillars get their first meal from their own eggshells.
Qn.2) Leopards hunt for the most part in the night. Polar bear is mostly active during the day i.e. it is diurnal.
Qn.3) Baby rabbits are called kit or kitten.
Qn.4) Wolves hunt once or twice in a week. They can go for more than seven days without eating, but they need to get food atleast once a week.
Qn.5) An octopus has three hearts (and eight legs)