Part 4.

You will hear a marine biologist giving a talk about a species of fish
called the basking shark. First, you have some time to look at questions 31 to 40.
Now listen and answer questions 31 to 40. Good evening.

Thank you for coming to this talk about the basking shark. I'm going to tell you a
little bit about the fish, discuss its conservation status, then give you some
information about the research we've been doing into its migratory behavior.
First of all then, what does a basking shark look like? Well, the first thing to
say is that for a fish, it's very large. It's actually the 2nd largest to be found
anywhere on earth, reaching a length of up to 10 meters when it's fully grown.

The first thing you notice about the basking shark is the size of its mouth, which
is enormous, and the fact that it swims along with its mouth wide open, swallowing
up to 1, 500, 000 liters of water an hour.
The next thing you notice is the fact that the basking shark has no teeth. It
doesn't need them because it feeds on small organisms known as plankton, which it
filters out of the water it swallows.
This makes it very different from other species of shark, which are top predators.
So what are the basking shark's conservation status?

Well, until relatively recently, the fish was quite widely hunted. This was because
oils could be extracted from its liver, and these were used in certain industrial
processes. This hunting has now been outlawed.
Although the basking shark doesn't feature on the list of endangered animals
because it is not directly threatened with extinction, it is regarded as
vulnerable,
which is another of the terms used by conservationists to categorize the status of
less common species. In other words, it may be at risk.

This is partly because of the animal's feeding behaviour. Because it swims close to
the surface, it's more likely to be injured by human activity. All shipping is a
danger to it, but speedboats pose the greatest danger.
This is because they come upon the fish suddenly, and it has little chance to get
out of the way. Having said that, the basking shark prefers what we would define as
open water,
thus lessening the chances of such problems Creatures inhabiting coastal waters are
more at risk from this type of human activity Which brings us nicely to the focus
of our current research project.

Although the basking shark is regularly seen, thanks to its size and the fact that
it feeds close to the surface, we also know that the species is migratory.
Little is known, however, about the details of its migratory behaviour. Our
research is therefore concentrated on 2 main questions. Firstly, we'd like to
establish whether it migrates to different latitudes.
We know that the species is quite widespread, but we don't know to what extent
individual fish move about.

Secondly, we'd like to find out to what extent the fish migrates to different
depths. In other words, where does it go when it's not feeding on the surface, like
when it's moving from 1 area to another?
To find out, researchers have been using the latest satellite technology to try and
track the movements of these creatures. What we've been doing is concentrating on
parts of the ocean that we call 'hot spots'.
These are places to which basking sharks are particularly attracted, thanks to the
large amounts of plankton available.

By placing an electronic transmitter known as a tag under an individual animal's

skin, it's possible then to trace its movements. There are various techniques
available,
and researchers have selected 3 quite different forms of tagging to use for this
project. Preliminary results already suggest that the basking sharks do indeed
travel quite long distances,
and not always at the surface So before I go on That is the end of the test