Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.

<passage>:
By WILLIAM TENN Illustrated by GAUGHAN And if that had not been discovered, the ruling powers of Earth, more than a century later, would never have plucked Max Alben out of an obscure civil-service job as a relief guard at the North American white leghorn hens and two roosters—about one-sixth of the known livestock wealth of the Western Hemisphere—thoroughly content with not now be shifting from foot to foot in a physics laboratory, facing the black market kings of the world and awaiting their final five children of a full spoonful each of non-synthetic sugar a day? Even if he didn't come back, his family was provided for like almost no other family on Earth. This was a damn good job and he was lucky. the far side of the room and was approaching him with a sealed metal cylinder in one hand. "We've decided to add a further precaution at the last moment," the old man said. "That is, the scientists have suggested it and I have—er—I have given my approval." The last remark was added with a slight questioning note as the Secretary-General of the United Nations looked back rapidly at the instructions once more. You enter the time machine and go back the duration for which it has been preset, a hundred and thirteen years, to is 1976, isn't it?" he asked, suddenly uncertain. 1976." He glanced proudly at the unemotional men on the couches, very much like a small boy after completing a recitation before visiting dignitaries from the Board of Education. alter human history for the better. Very much for the better. Yes." He paused, having evidently stumbled out of his thought sequence. "And he pulls the red switch toward him," Gomez, the dandelion-root magnate, reminded him sharply, impatiently. "Ah, yes, the red switch. He pulls the little red switch toward him. Thank you, Mr. Gomez, thank you very much, sir. He pulls the little red switch on the green instrument panel toward him, thus preventing and causing it, instead, to explode somewhere in the mid-Pacific, as originally planned." The Secretary-General of the United Nations beamed. "Thus preventing medium. Our purpose here, as you no doubt—" Levney sat up on his couch and snapped his fingers peremptorily. "I moving. We're busy men. We've wasted enough time." "I was just trying to explain a crucial final fact," the Move! " of his two colleagues. Bob Skeat and Hugo Honek had done as much as he to build the tiny time machine in the secret lab under the helicopter garage, and they were fully as eager to go, but—unfortunately for them—they were not descended from the right ancestor. And if that had not been discovered, the Albins would not have become physicists upon the passage of the United Nations law that everyone on Earth—absolutely without exception—had to choose a branch of "Any time you feel like taking an unnecessary risk, remember that Bob and I will have to stand trial if you don't come back. We might be sentenced to complete loss of professional status and spend the rest of our lives supervising robot factories." if either of us dropped out of sight, it wouldn't cause nearly as much uproar." him. "And you blacked out after a fifteen-second temporal displacement. So I'm the only chance, the only way to stop the human race from dwindling and dwindling till it hits absolute zero, like that fat old Security Council seems willing for it to do." their way, the conservative way: a worldwide concentration on genetics research coupled with the maximum preservation of existing human lives, especially those that have a high reproductive potential. We three disagree with them we've been skulking down here nights to solve it our way, and ours is a radical approach and plenty risky. That's of its own. Maybe tough problems. Maybe the problems will be tough enough so that they'll get the same idea we did and try to go back to the same point in time to change them." and autonomous to all possible futures. It's my hunch that something that's immersed in it will not be altered by a new time sequence." "Remind him to be careful, Bob," Honek rumbled. "He thinks he's Captain Blood and this is his big chance to run away to sea and become a swashbuckling pirate." recognize that simple fact. I know that if anything unexpected pops up, anything we didn't foresee, I'm supposed to come scuttling back and ask for advice." "I hope you do," Bob Skeat sighed. "I hope you do know that. A ending with a whimper. Try to see that it doesn't end with a bang, either." with neither a bang nor which knocked unconscious everyone who tried it, only made him feel slightly dizzy. That was because he was descended from Giovanni Albeni, he had been told. There must be some complicated scientific explanation All he had to do now was materialize in the right spot, flash out and pull the red switch toward him. Then his well-paid assignment would be done. But.... he read. There had been a number of such experiments, but it was the one of 1976 that finally did the damage the biologists had been Fortunately, the radioactivity in the rain was sufficiently low to do little obvious physical damage: All it did was cause a mutation in the mumps virus that several of the men in the fleet were incubating at the to its dismay that its generative powers had been permanently and fundamentally impaired. Something had happened to the germ plasm. A large percentage of individuals were born sterile, and, of those who were not, one child was usually the most that could be expected, a two-child parent being quite rare and a three-child parent almost unknown. that they experiment without any risk to their own lives—every human being was now a much-prized, highly guarded rarity. There were less than a hundred thousand of them, well below the danger point, it had been estimated, where a species might be wiped out by a new calamity. Not that another calamity would be needed. Since the end of the Epidemic, the birth rate had been moving further and further behind the death rate. In another century.... induced coma in everyone who tried it, only made him feel slightly dizzy. That was because he was descended from Giovanni Albeni, he knew. Maybe there was some genetic relationship with his above-average two when he returned. If he returned. Experiment. Carefully, carefully, like an obstetrician supervising surgical robots at an unusually difficult birth, he watched the register until it rolled to rest against the notch that indicated the push the red switch from him. Then his exciting adventure would be over. But.... a second before materialization. Yes, that nervous theoretician, Bob Skeat, had given him a last suggestion. out—it was cold , as cold as they had figured—and pulled the object read. There had been a number of such experiments, but it was the one of 1976 that finally did the damage the biologists had been warning Most of the world's non-human mammals had been slaughtered for food plankton—the tiny organism on which most of the sea's ecology was begun to pile up on the beaches. Mankind had lunged out desperately in all directions in an effort to survive, but nothing had worked for any length of time. Even the other kept shrinking. In another century.... That was why the planet's powerful individuals had been persuaded to his instructions if anything unusual turned up. That was an awful lot of power to disobey: he knew he should return with this new information five children—why, he'd be a big man, maybe the biggest man on Earth! And he'd have robots to work for him and lots of food. Above doing. He'd promised Bob and Hugo to drop the experiment at any stage if a new factor showed up. He knew he should go back with this new information and have all three of them kick it around. of his unused muscles. He was tired of having to undertake a simple adventure like a thief in the night. deserved a chance.

<question>:
Approximately how many farm animals were there in the Americas?

<options>:
A 12
B 18
C 30
D 5

<answer>:

C