NewsTracker Answers for week of Sep. 12, 2022

Q: Five people died last week in New Zealand after their charter boat capsized in what may have been a collision with a whale, authorities said. Another six people were rescued. Where is the South Pacific island nation of New Zealand?

Circle the area on this map


Q: Officials assumed a whale surfaced beneath the 28-foot boat carrying birdwatchers, causing it to overturn. New Zealand outlawed whaling in 1978. Which nation still hunts whales for profit?

A. Iceland

B. Japan

C. Norway

D. All of the above


D. Iceland, Japan and Norway are the only nations to allow commercial whaling. The United States allows some indigenous people in Alaska to hunt whales only for survival. And, in the North Atlantic’s Faeroe Islands, whales are hunted annually for meat, which is shared by the community.


Q: The boat overturned near the South Island town of Kaikoura, a popular whale-watching destination. The South Island is the largest of the more than 700 islands in the New Zealand ...

A. Archipelago

B. Bayou

C. Firth

D. Peninsula


A. The New Zealand archipelago – a collection of islands – was the last large habitable landmass to be settled by humans. Between about 1280 and 1350, Polynesians began to settle in the islands and then developed a distinctive Maori culture.


Q: New Zealand’s 5 million people are among 151 million worldwide subjects of King Charles III, who last week succeeded his mother, Elizabeth II. Charles is the head of state of how many constitutional monarchies?

A. 5

B. 15

C. 36

D. 56


B. There are 15 Commonwealth realms, sovereign states in the Commonwealth of Nations, which share the British monarch as head of state. The Commonwealth has 56 member states, mostly former territories of the British Empire. With the death of Queen Elizabeth II, some of the 15 realms are expected to drop allegiance to the monarch and become republics.


Q: New Zealanders are often called kiwis. What is a kiwi?

A. Breed of sheep

B. Citrus fruit

C. Flightless bird

D. Maori tattoo


C. About the size of a chicken, kiwis are flightless birds found only in New Zealand. Kiwifruit, a berry native to China, was named after the kiwi bird because of its fuzzy skin.