Shadowing Practice: Why no aquarium has a great white shark - Learn English Speaking with Video
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There are some shark species that seem to do okay in aquariums.
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You'll see a lot of nurse sharks, zebra sharks, some reef sharks and sand tiger sharks, but not the great white.
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For decades, aquariums have tried to contain the world's largest predatory fish.
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Institutions like Marineland, SeaWorld and the Steinhardt Aquarium repeatedly took in white sharks during the 1970s, 80s and 90s, at times drawing huge crowds.
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But they never lasted long.
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Some needed help swimming.
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None of them would eat.
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The longest one lasted was just 16 days.
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A 1984 report by the Steinhardt Aquarium put it this way.
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In most cases, it could be said that all of these captive sharks were merely in the process of dying, with some taking longer than others.
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They had constructed an elaborate transport tank with a harness and IV fluids, but still couldn't keep the sharks alive.
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It wasn't until 2004 that the Monterey Bay Aquarium proved
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that it was possible to keep white sharks for at least six months.
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It took a massive effort, and no one's done it since.
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Our approach was one of sort of a systematic, logical sequence of things leading up to our success, and it started with designing the tank.
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The Monterey Bay Aquarium had a million -gallon egg -shaped tank, 35 feet deep, designed for open -ocean animals like tuna and sharks.
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So you need a big tank.
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You also need a small shark.
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Adult great whites reach 15 feet on average.
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The Monterey Bay Aquarium nabbed one in 2004 that was 4 feet 4 inches, less than a year old.
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That made it easier to move and easier to keep.
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When they're young, they feed on fish.
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And as they get older, they transition to feeding more on mammals.
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And so we were targeting the age bracket where we were more able to feed their natural diet it.
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And once they collected the shark, they didn't take it straight to the aquarium.
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Instead, the Monterey Bay team set up a four million gallon pen right there in the ocean.
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That way they could monitor the shark and see
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if it would feed before they moved it into a transport tank to travel from Southern California, where the sharks were born, up to the aquarium.
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Sharks, like all fish, need to have water continually passing through their gills in order to get oxygen.
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Most species can open and close their mouths to pump water through, but white sharks and a couple dozen other species don't do that.
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To breathe, they have to move forward through the water with their mouths open.
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That's why white sharks start to weaken as soon as they're caught in the net.
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And that's why they needed a custom built transport tank for mobile life support.
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Everything from oxygen sensors and video cameras and lighting and filtration systems
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that were needed for the what turned out to roughly be nine to 11 hour transport time.
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Aquarium attendance jumped 30 % while the shark was on display.
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After six and a half months, they decided to release it because it had killed two other sharks.
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Over the next six years, the aquarium displayed five more baby white sharks.
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Some they paid fishermen to hand over, some they caught themselves.
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Their stays ranged from just 11 days up to five months.
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The Monterey Bay Aquarium had succeeded in doing what no one else could.
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But it did take a toll on the sharks.
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They developed visible sores from bumping into the sides of the tank.
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We actually snuck in with photographers
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and took pictures of the sharks as they were beginning to trit and fail due to constant scraping against the wall, basically.
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As we viewed it, it was a vase of flowers that would be kept for the visitors.
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Historically, aquariums kept sharks that lived near the seabed or near reefs.
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That makes sense it's easier to recreate those habitats in a tank.
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But in recent decades, aquariums have wanted to bring in bigger, more pelagic sharks, those that spend time roaming the open ocean.
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They've even been able to exhibit the largest shark in the world, the whale shark, if they have a big enough tank.
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But pelagic sharks are used to being able to swim long distances without obstructions, changing directions only as they please.
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So the faster moving sharks like the white shark, mako shark, and blue shark, They have trouble with walls when they're put in a tank.
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That's what was happening with the Monterey Bay Aquarium's sixth white shark in 2011.
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They decided to release it after 55 days and its tracking tag revealed that the shark died shortly after being released.
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They're not sure why.
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But since then, they haven't tried to bring in another great white shark.
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It's a very, very, very resource intensive program
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and we felt like we had accomplished our goal of introducing the general public to a live white shark.
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It took a huge, carefully planned system to keep a white shark alive.
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And even then, the sharks didn't quite fit there.
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We can't seem to stop trying though.
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Earlier this year, an 11 and a half foot great white shark was taken to an aquarium in Okinawa,
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Japan, after getting caught in a fisherman's net.
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It was the only adult white shark ever to be put on display.
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And within three days, it was dead.
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I wanted to show you a great resource online called the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
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It's the product of a couple dozen museums and libraries, all agreeing to scan millions of pages from books related to biodiversity.
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They've got a bunch of great albums on Flickr, including one that's all about sharks.
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Some of these go back to the 16th and 17th centuries, back when naturalists used to call sharks see dogs,
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which is funny because as we now know, sharks were roaming the oceans for about 300 million years before the first mammals showed up.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Why no aquarium has a great white shark”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: shark, aquarium, tank, Monterey, Bay. This video has 27 sentences and 989 words to shadow. The speech runs for 5:49. The speaker talks at a natural 170 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 76% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| aquarium noun | /əˈkwɛɹ.i.jəm/ | A tank, often made of glass, for keeping live fish or other aquatic animals. |
| resource noun | /ɹɪˈzɔːs/ | Something that one uses to achieve an objective, e.g. raw materials or personnel. |
| oxygen noun | /ˈɑksɪd͡ʒən/ | The chemical element (symbol O) with an atomic number of 8 and relative atomic mass of 15.9994. It is a colorless and odorless gas. Sometimes called elemental… |
| swim verb | /swɪm/ | To move through the water, without touching the bottom; to propel oneself in water by natural means. |
| reef noun | /ɹiːf/ | A chain or range of rocks, sand, or coral lying at or near the surface of the water. |
| gallon noun | /ˈɡælən/ | A unit of volume, equivalent to eight pints |
| shortly adverb | /ˈʃɔɹtli/ | In a short or brief time or manner; quickly. |
| carefully adverb | /ˈkɛɹf(ə)li/ | With care; attentively, circumspectly. |
| transition noun | /tɹænˈzɪʃ.ən/ | The process of change from one form, state, style or place to another. |
| sand noun | /sænd/ | Rock that is ground more finely than gravel, but is not as fine as silt (more formally, see grain sizes chart), forming beaches and deserts and also used in… |
| custom noun | /ˈkʌstəm/ | Frequent repetition of the same behavior; way of behavior common to many; ordinary manner; habitual practice; method of doing, living or behaving. |
| reveal verb | /ɹɪˈviːl/ | To uncover; to show and display that which was hidden. |
| flower noun | /ˈfloʊɚ/ | A reproductive structure in angiosperms (flowering plants), often conspicuously colourful and typically including sepals, petals, and either or both stamens… |
| institution noun | /ˌɪn.stɪˈtʃuː.ʃən/ | A long-established organization or type of organization, particularly one involved with education, public service, or charity work. |
| nurse noun | /nɝs/ | Anyone performing this role, regardless of training or profession. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. | |
| hand over verb | To relinquish control or possession of something to someone. | |
| lead up to verb | To set in motion; to act as a causal or preparatory event or sequence of events. | |
| move forward verb | To cause to make progress. | |
| pass through verb | To go through, to travel through, to transit or lie across a place or from one place to another. | |
| set up verb | /ˌsɛt ˈʌp/ | To make ready for use. |
| show up verb | To appear, arrive, or attend, especially suddenly or erratically. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | could be said · were born · were needed |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have tried · have wanted · They've even been |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 14 contractions and reduced forms, such as they're, didn't, they've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: sixth /sɪksθ/, breathe /bɹiːð/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shortly /ˈʃɔɹtli/, transition /tɹænˈzɪʃ.ən/, institution /ˌɪn.stɪˈtʃuː.ʃən/, accomplish /əˈkɑm.plɪʃ/, obstruction /əbˈstɹʌk.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: aquarium /əˈkwɛɹ.i.jəm/, institution /ˌɪn.stɪˈtʃuː.ʃən/, photographer /fəˈtɑ.ɡɹə.fɚ/, repeatedly /ɹɪˈpiːtɪdli/, elaborate /ɪˈlæb.ə.ɹeɪt/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like aquarium, resource, oxygen.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.