Підручник для студентів старших курсів

Manila: The International Committee of the Red Cross is making available between $5.6 million (£3.3 million) and $7.01 million to help countries, including Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, hit by El Niño. (AFP)

 Explanatory Notes
¹⁾ Toll – used mainly in newspaper headline language to denote the total number of people who have been killed. Here: of wildlife.
²⁾ El Niño – is a warm ocean current of variable intensity that develops after late December along the coast of the Pacific Ocean, and sometimes causes catostrophic weather conditions, e.g. flood, droughts, warming and other weather disturbances in many regions of the world. El Niño is Spanish for “the boy” and refers to the Christ child, because periodic warming in the Pacific near South America is usually noticed around Christmas.
Section 1
TEXT COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS

1. 
   What problem is covered in the newspaper publication under study?
   
2. 
   Which species of ocean mammals fell victims to El Niño?
   
3. 
   What is the reported wildlife toll of El Niño?
   
4. 
   What geographical areas were worst affected by the warm current of El Niño?
   
5. 
   Where and why is the death rate among baby seals and sea-lions expected to rise?
   
6. 
   What are the destructive consequences of the year’s first big El Niño storm and who has borne the brunt of El Niño so far?
   
7. 
   What is reported to be home to the largest populations of California sea lions and northern fur seals outside Alaska?
   
8. 
   What rescue measures are taken by scientists and conservation groups and what do they consider to be the cause of the current severe El Niño pattern?
   
9. 
   What usually gives mammal population easy access to cold water fish, enumerate what kinds of fish these are?
   
10. 
    Why are baby seals and sea lions dying by the thousand and how many of them have so far died according to the National Marine Fisheries Service?
    
11. 
    What is the role of the international conservation treaties in saving both species and what are experts apprehensive about?
    
12. 
    What is the indispensable condition for wildlife’s survival?
    
13. 
    What amount of money is going to be spent on the assistance to the countries hit by El Niño?
    

 Section 2