R-prac-1-Q15 – Selective High School

Read the text below. Six sentences have been removed from this text so that there are six gaps.

Octopus farming

Plans to create octopus farms in coastal waters round the world have been denounced by an international group of researchers. They say the move is ethically inexcusable and environmentally dangerous, and have called on private companies, academic institutions and governments to block funding for these ventures.

The researchers say that farming octopuses would require the catching of vast amounts of fish and shellfish to feed them, putting further pressure on the planet’s already threatened marine livestock. The group, led by Professor Jennifer Jacquet of New York University, argues that octopuses are highly developed and curious creatures. (15) ............ . ‘We can see no reason why, in the 21st century, a sophisticated, complex animal should become the source of mass-produced food,’ says Jacquet. 'Octopuses eat fish and shellfish, and supplying enough to feed large numbers of them puts further pressure on the food chain. It is unsustainable. Octopus factory farming is ethically and ecologically unjustified.'

There are about 300 species of octopus and many behave in surprisingly sophisticated ways. In tests, some have been shown to use tools, for example. (16) ............ . ‘Once octopuses have solved a problem, they retain a long-term memory of the solution,’ the researchers state in a paper in Issues in Science and Technology.

Octopuses are also a culinary delicacy. About 350,000 tonnes are caught every year and served in restaurants from Spain to Chile and from Mexico to Australia. However, numbers of octopus caught are reported to be in decline. (17) ............ . Wild-caught males and females are allowed to mate. Then their fertile eggs hatch out in containers and are grown into adults to be sold to markets round the globe.

(18) ............ . This has made feeding them difficult and expensive. Keeping young animals in water whose salinity and temperature are carefully controlled has also proved tricky. These drawbacks have prevented octopus farms from making progress – until recently. Aquaculturists have learned that the young of some octopus species are less fussy about the food they eat and have used these species as basic stock for breeding. (19) ............ .

As a result, companies in Australia, Japan and Mexico have said they are hatching octopus eggs in captivity and will soon be ready to sell farmed octopuses. (20) ............ . The main markets for the animals – the US, Europe, Japan and China – are areas where people are already well-fed. Octopuses are delicacies and do not deserve to be the focus of intensive farming. Peter Godfrey-Smith of Sydney University commented: ‘Why should research money be used to support a project that will inevitably have so many welfare and environmental problems once it is scaled up?’

Choose from the sentences below the one which fits each gap. Click each sentence to select it then click the correct gap (A – F) below. There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use.

But might this actually be the best way to protect the species over the long term?

These efforts have foundered, however, because octopus larvae eat only live food.

But the case for octopus farming is weak, according to Jacquet and her co-authors.

There have also been advances in controlling the environments in which octopuses are raised.

Fish farmers have turned to the rearing of octopuses to try to replace these dwindling catches.

Farming them intensively would probably cause large numbers of deaths from stress.

In one such experiment, scientists observed octopuses building shelters from pieces of coconut shell.

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Octopus farming

Choose from the sentences below the one which fits each gap. Click each sentence to select it then click the correct gap (A – F) below. There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use.