This is quite a difficult lesson and should give you a good challenge!
Many animals no longer exist today and some animals such as pandas have nearly disappeared.
In other words they are extinct or endangered.
This article has some missing vocabulary.
I have taken out some of the past simple verbs.
You need to decide which verb goes in which gap and change the verb to its past simple form.
Good luck!
Lesson by Caroline
Description:
The blue whale is the largest animal ever to have existed on Earth, even bigger than the dinosaurs
Why are they endangered?
In the early part of the twentieth century whales were often commercially _1_ because their body parts could be used to make products such as soap and oil.
Eventually intensive whaling _2_ many species, including the blue whale, to the edge of extinction.
Description:
Large bird that couldn't fly.
Reasons for extinction:
The dodo only _3_ on the island of Mauritius. When sailors _4_ in the sixteenth century they found that the dodo was very easy to catch, and even though it didn't taste very nice, many were eaten.
The dodo's natural habitat was mostly _5_ after people started settling on Mauritius. Then when dogs, cats and other animals were introduced, they started eating the Dodo eggs.
Description:
Looks like a big frog, but males were orange, and females were dark green or black with red spots.
Reasons for extinction:
Golden toads only lived in a small area of Costa Rica.
There used to be hundreds of them gathered to breed in the rainy season.
By 1988 they suddenly _6_ very rare and only ten were found in 1988. Two years later there were none left.
We do not know what happened to them. Most probably they were the victim of human activity.
Their habitat was _7_ by people cutting down trees in the area where they lived.
Description:
Looks like the usual pigeons you see in your town.
Reasons for extinction:
300 years ago passenger pigeons were probably the most common birds in the world.
But, by 1912, hardly any were seen. The last bird, called 'Martha', died in a zoo in 1914.
How could this happen? Well, they were _8_ - but it wasn't just hunting that caused their extinction.
You see, the passenger pigeon _9_ to nest and raise their chicks around lots of other pigeons.
So, when their numbers began to decline because of hunting, they became unable to breed properly.
This made the population fragile, and when humans hunted them further, shooting and trapping them, they managed to exterminate the entire species.
Remember to change the verbs into the past tense:
