Saturday 31 March 2012

Listening, News & Animals: Bart the Gray Whale


Bart the Grey Whale, entangled by fishing net
Image from globalanimal.org
Those who kill whales of the sea will not understand or ever experience the incredible feeling of rescuing these amazing mammals.

Here's the video and the transcript I have manually typed for your listening practice.





The best anyone could tell, the young gray whale was making its first migratory trip north from <Baha?> to Alaska when it got entangled up in a huge gill net.

A big curtain floated on top of the water, weighed down at least 20-feet below the water.

It was spotted Friday night then tagged with a buoy.

"Let it go!"

Sailor Peter <last name> agreed to babysit the 30-foot long whale overnight which is why it became known as Bart.

Rescue crew suspect the grey had been dragging for a week, it was filled with dozen of dead animals.

"We had a sealion, we had several sharks. I mean, it was ...it was the the whole ecosystem, you know, was in that netting."

They also had a challenge, to cut through the nylon netting without hurting the big mammal.

"I got it, it's on."

The cutting went on for seven tiring hours, as the rescue crew followed the whale mile after mile out to sea.

"It was getting very frightening towards the end of the day because ah.. we are running out of time."

Then perhaps sensing it was time, the whale took off.

"Those buoys just went under the water all of a sudden, and when it went under the water, I mean it was like that .. a scene from JAWS, you know, I mean it's like, don don don don *music of movie JAWS*, you know, we need a bigger boat."

Moments later, Bart serviced.

"We get over to the hm.. to the .. to the... to the buoys, we pick them up, and there is all that net, all that net, strung back, and we hear our other boat was over there, and they were screaming, "He's free! He's free!"

David Anderson said about thousands of dolphins died in fishing nets every year around the world, he felt grateful to have saved one.

Actually came right up to us and almost mouthed "Thank you". It was pretty awesome, it was pretty awesome.



Well, the end of the story might be a tragic one, as a young grey whale was later found dead off Long Beach, its tail was found to have been injuried by netting.

Gray whale found dead off Long Beach with injuries to tail
Image from LA Times

It is still unsure whether the dead whale is the same one, but humans are the killers.

If we didn't eat so much fish, these animals won't be hurt by the fishing nets and this baby dolphin wouldn't need to learn swimming from a human.



May these animals enjoy a good life.


Vocabulary:
migratory -- (adj) [I] When an animal migrates, it travels to a different place, usually when the season changes
entangle -- (vb) to cause something to become caught in something such as a net or ropes
drag -- (vb) [T] to move something by pulling it along a surface, usually the ground
strung -- past tense of string -- (vb) to put strings on a musical instrument



Resources:
Whale Rescued In Southern California, Now Dead? (VIDEO) @ Global Animal
http://www.globalanimal.org/2012/03/30/whale-rescued-in-southern-california-now-dead-video/70958/

Gray whale found dead off Long Beach with injuries to tail @ LA Times
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/03/dead-whale-long-beach.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+lanowblog+%28L.A.+Now%29

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/migrate_1?q=migratory
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/entangle?q=entangle
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/drag_1?q=drag+
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/string_7