A new strategy for releasing the seals into the wild has been created

A new strategy for releasing the seals into the wild has been created; the question is if marine biologists will be able to track the seals once they are back in the ocean.

Meaning of the original sentence:

Even though "if" doesn't suit here much we can still infer intended meaning:
1. A new strategy has been created to release the seals into the wild
2. The question is marine biologists can track the seals once seals are in the ocean or not.

Errors of the original sentence:

Clear split here is between "if" and "whether"

"if" is used in conditionals

If you go the cinema I will go with you.

"whether" is used to to present a choice, an alternative or a possibility.

Whether I will go to the park or not depends on weather

Original sentence presents possibility marine biologists will be able to track or not able to track.
So 'if' is wrong here, we need "whether"

POE

We can eliminate (A) and (D) straight away not wasting our time for searching other errors here.

(A) if marine biologists will be able to track the seals once they are back in
(D) if marine biologists will be able to track and follow the seals after the seals have been returned to

(A) seems to me usage of tenses here are equal in terms of sequencing, whereas (B) shows some sequencing:: 1. seals have released then 2. marine biologists will be able to track them. You are not able to track seals that are not released yet. So (D) beats (A) here by tenses.


(B) whether marine biologists will be able to track it once they are back in
('it' has not antecedent, seals - plural, marine biologists - plural)

(C) whether marine biologists will be able to track one after the seal has been returned to
(from the grammar stand poit this answer is perfectly fine, one - refer to singular - seal, is fine, but from the meaning it is a little weird, in non-underlined part we have plural 'seals', but now singular 'one' we need to track 'seals' or 'the seal"-as whole species, let's this one, and maybe we have something better)

(E) whether marine biologists will be able to track the seals once the creatures have been returned to


Once we clearly understand intended meaning of the original sentence we quckly eliminate (A) and (D), (B) also can quckly be eliminated - no 'it' antecedent. Between (C) and (E), (E) uses - plural - seals - creatures - and verb tense is also fine - present perfect - presente the result that seals have been released and marine biologists can track them if they can

E is the answer

Official Explanation :

The sentence incorrectly uses if instead of whether. When there are only two possible options, whether is idiomatically preferable to if,so eliminate (A) and (D).

The remaining three choices differ in their use of pronouns. Choice (B) incorrectly uses it to replace seals, and they is ambiguous, as it could refer to either the marine biologists or the seals.

Choice (C) somewhat ambiguously uses one to replace seals, and thus contains a pronoun error. The correct answer is (E).

Can someone please explain. What is the need of passive structure in Option E..

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