BBC Learning English - 6 Minute English / How climate change affects animal migration
Download a free 6 Minute English worksheet and transcript!
Try our free interactive quiz!
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Try more episodes of 6 Minute English:
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Introduction
Climate change can affect the way animals migrate, but did you know that some animal migration could be used to fight climate change? Neil and Beth discuss this and teach you some new vocabulary.
This week's question
How many animals are thought to take part in The Great Migration, the annual migration of animals around the Serengeti in Tanzania and the Maasai Mara in Kenya?
a) 1 million
b) 1.5 million
c) 2.5 million
Listen to the programme to hear the answer.
Vocabulary
migrate
move to another place because of the weather or temperature
what kind of (something, e.g. price, distance) are we talking?
used to rephrase a question that starts with how much or how far
swathes
large areas of something
secret weapon
something nobody knows about that gives you an advantage over a problem or enemy
sequester
separate and store
for perspective
used to explain the size or importance of something, particularly when that thing is difficult to imagine
TRANSCRIPT
Note: This is not a word-for-word transcript.
Beth
Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm Beth.
Neil
And I'm Neil. You can find a transcript and worksheet for this podcast on our website bbclearningenglish.com.
Beth
So Neil, today we're talking about animal migration: that's the movement of animals from one place to another, usually because of the weather or temperature.
Neil
Yes. For example, wildebeest are famous for their migration. They travel around the Serengeti in Tanzania and the Maasai Mara in Kenya every year depending on the rain. It's often called The Great Migration.
Beth
Yes, and I have a question for you about this, Neil. How many animals are thought to take part in The Great Migration every year? Is it:
a) 1 million
b) 1.5 million
c) 2.5 million
Neil
Well, I don't know… but I'm going to guess 2.5 million.
Beth
OK. I'll reveal the answer at the end of the programme. Now, wildebeest are not the only animals who travel large distances.
Neil
That's right. Many sharks also migrate – they move to a different place because of the weather or temperature.
Beth
Trisha Atwood researches sharks and their migration for Utah State University and explained more to BBC World Service programme, The Climate Question.
Trisha
Animals migrate for all types of reasons. So, some of them migrate for food resources, things like mating or for giving birth.
Neil
So, animals can migrate for food, mating and giving birth. Host of BBC World Service's The Climate Question, Sophie Eastaugh, wanted to know more.
Sophie
And what kind of distances are we talking with these migrations? Are they covering huge swathes of ocean?
Trisha
Some of these shark species can travel massive distances. We've seen great white sharks that have travelled from the coast off of Perth, Australia, all the way to South Africa.
Beth
Sophie asks, "What kinds of distances are we talking with these migrations?" This is an informal way to ask, "How far are the migrations?" We can rephrase lots of questions in this way. For example, you could ask "What kind of price are we talking?" to ask how much something costs.
Neil
Sophie goes on to ask whether sharks travel across huge swathes of ocean. Swathes of ocean means large areas of ocean.
Beth
Yes, and in fact, sharks do travel across large areas. For example, great white sharks can travel from Australia to South Africa. That is a long way to swim!
Neil
But, as climate change causes changes to the temperature of the ocean, it's changing the way that sharks migrate.
Beth
This is a problem; sharks scare away other creatures, such as sea turtles, and these creatures eat seagrass, which absorbs a lot of carbon from the atmosphere.
Neil
So, basically, when the sharks are around, there's more seagrass on the ocean floor and so more carbon is absorbed. So, sharks can actually help fight climate change.
Beth
Yes. In fact, lots of species that migrate are really important for fighting climate change. Let's hear more from BBC World Service programme, The Climate Question.
Sophie
Sharks aren't the only migratory animal that acts as a secret weapon against climate change.
Trisha
Research that we worked on shows that by just managing about 10 groups of animals we could be taking out or sequestering more CO2 from the atmosphere by about six gigatonnes of carbon per year.
Sophie
So, for perspective, some experts say that we need to suck 10 gigatonnes of CO2 a year out of the atmosphere to meet our climate goals.
Neil
Sophie says that many animals that migrate, like sharks, are a secret weapon against climate change. A secret weapon is something nobody knows about that will give you an advantage over a problem or enemy.
Beth
By protecting sharks and other animals that migrate, Trisha's research shows that we could be sequestering six gigatonnes of carbon dioxide, or CO2, a year from the atmosphere. Sequester means remove and store the carbon, for example in plants like seagrass.
Neil
Six gigatonnes is a lot of carbon! Sophie says that, for perspective, it's about 60% of the amount of carbon dioxide that some scientists believe we need to remove from the atmosphere each year. We can use the phrase 'for perspective' to explain the size or importance of something, particularly when it's difficult to imagine that thing.
Beth
Alongside sharks, another species that Trisha believes is important to helping remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is the wildebeest.
Neil
Yes, and that reminds me of your question, Beth. You asked me how many animals take part in The Great Migration, and I think I went for option c) 2.5 million. Was I right?
Beth
You weren't, I'm afraid. The answer was b) 1.5 million, so still a lot of animals. OK. Let's recap the vocabulary we've learned, starting with migrate: move to a different place. For animals, this is usually because of the weather or temperature.
Neil
We can use the structure 'What kind of (something) are we talking?' to rephrase a question more informally, particularly one about distance, cost or numbers. For example, "What kind of distance are we talking?"
Beth
Swathes means large areas of something.
Neil
A secret weapon is something nobody knows about that gives you an advantage over a problem or enemy.
Beth
If you sequester something, such as carbon dioxide, you remove it and store it.
Neil
And we can use the phrase 'for perspective' to explain the size or importance of something, particularly if that thing is difficult to imagine.
Beth
Once again, our six minutes are up. Why not test what you've learned using the interactive quiz on our website? Bye for now!
Neil
Goodbye.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
13 hours ago
- BBC News
Plans to create "eel lanes" at the South Downs National Park
European eels were once a common sight in the UK, but they're now critically endangered, and part of the reason for this is due to barriers during their migration. They make an incredible 4,000 mile journey across two continents when they're just the size of a pea to reach freshwater in the UK. But man-made barriers like dams and weirs can make this epic migration much harder. That's why a new plan to create "eel lanes" around these structures is underway at the South Downs National Park. These "eel lanes" act like a narrow lane of water so eels can swim around the barriers in the way of their some places, eel brushes are also being added - they're strips of bristles to help eels make their way upstream. The project has been launched in partnership with the Western Sussex Rivers Trust to protect the habitat of the eel in the Rother and Ems Felus, chief executive of the trust, said: "With pollution, sewage and drought all playing a part in the diminishing water quality of our rivers and streams, it's more important than ever that we work together to help protect and enhance these precious habitats for wildlife and humans alike." The migration of the European eel European eels begin their lives in the Sargasso Sea, off the coast of Bermuda, as little larvae that look like a transparent leaf. They spend the next one to two years drifting across the Gulf Stream as their body flattens and elongates into what's known as the 'glass eel' they eventually reach the English coastline, they're about 8cm long. They use the force of the tides to push themselves upstream to make a home in rivers, including the Rother and they're in freshwater, they continue to transform, changing colour and growing up to 1m in length. They can live up to 20 years before they then make the 4,000 mile journey back to the Sargasso Sea to spawn.
BBC News
3 days ago
- BBC News
How voices from Daventry travelled the world
This years marks the centenary of the opening of the BBC transmitting station at Daventry in carried the BBC World Service to countries across the world from 1932 to 1992 and was also the site of the world's first national radio how did this small town in the Midlands become a famous name across the globe? Why was Daventry chosen as a transmitter site? When the BBC sprung into life in 1922, radio broadcasts could only be made over short company's chief engineer, Peter Eckersley, believed it was possible to create a long wave transmitter that would serve most of the BBC decided to find a site for a transmitting station that was situated north of a line between the Severn and the Wash, surrounded by as much land as locations were explored and Borough Hill in Daventry turned out to have the best coverage of BBC bought 58 acres (23 hectares) of the hill and started work on constructing the station. There was no road to the top, so it built a rack and pinion railway to haul building materials up the 128m (420ft) masts were erected with a lattice of copper wires and aluminium transmission equipment was housed in a spacious hall with cathedral windows in what became known as the 5XX building. What was the first radio service to be broadcast from Daventry? The station opened on 27 July 1925, with a poem called The Dane Tree written by the-then poet laureate, Alfred first broadcasts, for the BBC's National Programme, mainly originated in London and included plays, like The Glittering Gate, the story of two dead was also music, including popular songs and orchestral items. When was the BBC World Service first broadcast from Daventry? The BBC governors had been considering the idea of broadcasting beyond the shores of the United Kingdom for some corporation's engineers knew that short wave radio signals could travel long distances by reflecting off the ionosphere, part of the Earth's atmosphere, making international broadcasting in 1932, they expanded the site at Daventry and installed two short wave transmitters to send out the Empire Service, as the World Service was then called, to four zones across the a speech to mark the opening on 19 December 1932, the BBC's director-general John Reith warned that the early programmes "will neither be very interesting nor very good", but he also said the launch of the service was "a significant occasion in the history of the British Empire".He predicted that "broadcasting is a development with which the future must reckon and reckon seriously". How big did the international operation at Borough Hill become? As time went on, more services were launched to different countries, and complicated schedules of frequency changes were needed to keep the radio stations on air as atmospheric conditions changed during the engineer John Barry recalls services being broadcast in about 38 languages in the added that most of the languages were for eastern countries, as "in Asia, there are various vernaculars of Chinese, Indian, etcetera whereas, if you broadcast to the west, it was mainly Spanish". What impact did the transmitting station have on Daventry? People living in Daventry reported hearing programmes through metal items in their houses, such as taps and kettles, as well as chimneys and Viveash, another retired engineer, said other aspects of daily life were affected: "When TV started, [the radio signals] did cause a lot of interference with TV, so we went through a bit of a period being unpopular."When cars started to get in-built burglar alarms, you'd get the sound of the programme coming out of the car when you got into it."BBC sports teams were created and a BBC club was opened in Sheaf Street.A number of the men who came to work on Borough Hill ended up marrying local women. Why did the BBC station at Borough Hill close? There were two main reasons why the BBC vacated the Cold War, a period of tension between the USA and the Soviet Union , was over so the USA's international radio service, the Voice of America, moved out of the BBC's site at Woofferton in Service transmission could then be transferred from Daventry to modernising the Daventry facility would have involved constructing a large number of self-supporting towers on Borough Hill in place of masts held up by would have been expensive, and may not have enhanced the Daventry Bird, who worked on the hill for nearly 50 years, was given the honour of switching off the last transmitter on 29 March exhibition is currently open at Daventry's museum telling the story of the BBC's time in the town. Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
The Herald Scotland
4 days ago
- The Herald Scotland
Researchers warn of 'quiet crisis' facing NHS Scotland
This "lifeblood of future healthcare innovation" is "quietly being drained away," with a reported 30% drop in the most active cohort over the past decade. They cite a complex combination of factors, including a lack of ring-fenced funding to train and support clinical researchers, inequalities that lead to challenges for female and minority researchers, competitive disadvantages compared to English institutions, and extensive time commitments required to complete training and enter the profession. Despite the challenges, the authors highlight the important contributions of Scotland's clinical researchers and what is potentially at risk of the trend of decline continues. "In economic terms, investment in medical research pays dividends—every £1 spent returns around £1.25 annually to the wider economy. "Scotland has long punched above its weight in this field. From pioneering bowel cancer screening programmes using the faecal immunochemical test (FIT), now central to early detection efforts worldwide, to the EAVE-II platform, which was instrumental in understanding vaccine effectiveness during COVID-19, our clinical academics have delivered innovations with national and global impact." Prof Rory McCrimmon, one of the authors of the letter and Dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Dundee, explained how these types of contributions are at risk of becoming increasingly scarce. He said that there are more academics over the age of 55 than under the age of 35. Clinical researchers now make up just 3% of the overall workforce, and only 0.6% of primary care workers are clinical researchers. Prof Rory McCrimmon has argued that clinical researchers need more practical and financial support in order to continue performing their life-saving work. (Image: University of Dundee) He added that the shrinking supply of clinical academics, combined with the baked-in challenges in the field, is adding immense stress on researchers. "It is undoubtedly harder to do out-of-programme research at the PhD or MD level, because obtaining funding for that is challenging. "Students leave university now with a larger amount of debt, and it takes a long time. It takes maybe ten to fifteen years to become a consultant. If you add a further three to five years of research on top of that, that's an incredibly long time to become a clinical academic. "I think it is also perceived to be really, really hard, because you are moving into a very competitive world." Read more: Prof Lorna Marson, Dean of Clinical Medicine at Edinburgh and a contributor to the open letter, said that clinical researchers have a significant impact on their patients and communities, in addition to their broader contributions to the economy and the field. "Research-active hospitals have better outcomes for their patients in terms of morbidity and mortality. "Also, engaging in clinical trials gives patients the opportunity to get expensive drugs for no cost. "There are many significant added values to being a patient in a research hospital, so we need to support that as much as we can." Prof Lorna Marson has said that barriers to people looking to break into clinical research should not distract from the passion that these academics have for their profession. (Image: University of Edinburgh) Prof Marson added that the decline in the number of clinical academics was not due to a lack of ambition in the profession and that better general support for researchers could make the career more feasible for many hopefuls. 'It's extraordinary that there are still a good number of people who want to do this. I think that demonstrates the huge commitment that people are bringing to this field, and therefore, we have to support them and help them if it's what they want to do. 'But it is exceptionally difficult for women who also want to have time out to have a family, or those who have caring responsibilities and wish to prolong their training. 'Using women as an example, we need to look for ways to support them not only to have time out to have families, but to undertake their research and continue in clinical academia. That is where we see the biggest drop-off, and it is not because they don't passionately want to stay. 'They just can't see a way through it.' All of this is against a backdrop of extreme competition for funding. Prof Ian McInnes CBE, co-author of the letter and Vice Principal and Head of College, College of Medical, Veterinary & Life Sciences at the University of Glasgow, called it a 'sadness' that young researchers are facing barriers to the profession at a time when there are many new opportunities on the horizon. 'Increasingly, academicians of the future will be data scientists. They'll be computing scientists. They'll be business scientists with MBAs and organisational design specialists. 'One of the ambitions I have for Scotland is that we actually become a model for an incredibly diverse community of academic clinicians with expertise in so many different areas.' Due to the interconnectedness of the UK higher education sector, Scottish researchers and institutions are in direct competition with their English counterparts. But different structures and priorities mean they are not always on an even playing field, Prof McInnes explained. In England, for example, the time of clinical academics is often divided evenly between clinical work and research. However, in Scotland, the divide is closer to 80% clinical and 20% research time. 'That 80% grows arms and legs, because clinical medicine is busier, clinical surgery is busier, clinical psychiatry is busier. So we're at a substantial disadvantage in Scotland compared to England.' There are also significant financial awards available only in England, which can further limit opportunities for Scottish researchers. Despite this, Prof McInnes was clear that the situation is not a case of finding fault. The different structures north and south of the border represent different strategies and priorities. The Scottish Government is currently pursuing health innovation projects through its Accelerated National Innovation Adoption (ANIA) Pathway, which focuses on developing and implementing new health technologies across NHS Scotland. The programme recently committed £6 million to a project helping people with type 2 Diabetes, stroke patients and babies born with a rare genetic condition. In the end, Prof McInnes said he and his colleagues are making a call to find collaborative solutions to a common problem and preserve what he called 'fabulous careers.' 'Clinical academics enrich and embellish the quality of clinical care, and they do that by being part of that community. 'There is very good evidence that just being in a clinical trial leads to better long-term outcomes for most chronic conditions. Even if you just get a placebo, you become a beneficiary of an ecosystem that seeks the best option, not the most convenient option. 'Being a clinical academic is an incredibly enriching profession, and part of our concern is that the focus on funding and crisis in the NHS obscures the fantastically brilliant career that is available.' Health Secretary Neil Gray said clinical research is "vital" for both the NHS and the economy. 'The need and case for this plan and its actions is timely – in recent years, the sector has suffered from the impact of Brexit and from UK Government immigration policies which have stemmed the flow of international talent into research programmes. 'We continue to provide over £.1.1billion to universities each year, including over £368million for research and innovation. Our Chief Scientist Office also continues to provide various funding opportunities for clinical research, working closely with our academic community to deliver clinical trials, develop new research and fast-track new innovations and technologies which benefit Scottish patients. 'However, we recognise the challenges and opportunities highlighted in the recent MRC report and we will continue to collaborate closely with universities, the NHS and industry to maximise opportunities for clinical academics here in Scotland.'
