Question

again from the sea before disappearing.
2 the team immediately shared their news with the scientific community,
which was disbelieving. this type of gray whale is commonly seen off the
california coast; it couldnt simply have made its way to the other side of the
world. however, three weeks later, the same whale was photographed off the
coast of spain, 1,864 miles to the west of its first sighting. this particular
gray whale was never seen again, but the world of science finally accepted
this bizarre instance as a fact. one biologist compared it to seeing a giraffe
walking down the street in california.
3 but was this gray whales appearance really a freak occurrence, or is there
based on the text, what was so shocking about the may 8, 2010, sighting of
the mediterranean sea?
that particular gray whale was last spotted off the coast of california.
gray whales had not lived in the atlantic ocean for centuries.
in three weeks, the gray whale had made its way to israel from spain.
biologists believed that gray whales had been extinct since the 1700s.

Explanation:

The text states that the type of gray whale sighted is commonly seen off the California coast. It couldn't simply have made its way to the other side of the world. Three weeks later, the same whale was photographed off the coast of Spain. This implies that gray whales had not been in that area (Mediterranean Sea, which is in a different oceanic region than where they are commonly seen - California coast in the Pacific, and the Mediterranean is connected to the Atlantic) for a long - time. The fact that it was seen in the Mediterranean (a part of the Atlantic basin in a sense) is shocking as they are usually in the Pacific (California coast).

Answer:

Gray whales had not lived in the Atlantic Ocean for centuries.