Blue Whales
Blue whales, the world's largest animals, have been sighted again in British waters for the first time in at least twenty years. Indications that a population of blue whales was (1) _____ the waters west of Scotland came for the first time from the United States Navy, whose surveillance system picked up the songs of a lot of different whales.
American zoologists subsequently identified the blue whale song among them. Now marine biologist, Carol Booker, has actually seen a blue whale there herself. She has no doubt about what she saw, because they have distinctive fins which are very small for (3) _____ size. She says, 'Worldwide they were almost extinct and it seemed they had completely vanished from the North Atlantic, so you can imagine how I felt actually seeing (5) _____! However, it is certainly too soon to say if it is an indication of a population recovery.' She goes (7) _____ to say, 'What it does show is the importance of this area of the ocean for whales, and how essential it is to control pollution of the seas.'
Bigger than any dinosaur known to man, blue whales are the largest animals ever to have lived on earth. A blue whale is more than six metres long at birth and, when (5) _____ grown, its heart is the same height as a tall man and weighs as much as a horse.