How Did Animals Migrate All Around the World?

Then God spoke to Noah saying, “Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your son’s wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you: birds and cattle and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” (Genesis 8:15–17)

The Bible tells us that there was a worldwide Flood at the time of Noah. The only land-dwelling, air-breathing animals that survived the Flood were two of every kind (and either seven or seven pairs of some kinds) that were with Noah and his family on the Ark (Genesis 7:23). The Bible also says that the Ark landed in the mountains of Ararat (Genesis 8:4), which are in the Middle East. How did animals get from the mountains of Ararat to places like Australia or North America? Here are some possibilities:

1. Birds could have easily flown to the places where they live now.
2. Humans spreading out around the world would have taken some animals with them that they later turned loose or that went wild.
3. Local catastrophes after the Flood would have ripped up trees and other plants and piled them together into floating mats. Also, some mats of plant debris from the Flood still may have been floating on the oceans afterwards. Smaller animals that had gotten off the Ark may have climbed on these mats and been taken all around the world on strong ocean currents until they landed on an island or continent.
4. Soon after the Flood there was an Ice Age. During the Ice Age, ocean levels would have been lower than they are today. This would have exposed land bridges where animals and people could have walked across. Some of these land bridges, like the Bering Strait, which connected Russia and Alaska, are still here today though they are underwater now. Other land bridges could have been destroyed by earthquakes and shifting ocean floors.

Starting with the Bible and then using science, we can answer questions like, “How did the animals getting off Noah’s Ark get all around the world?” The Bible’s history is true!