Everyone, at least, nearly everyone,
knows what Noah’s ark is. However, most would think of it as a childish, cute
little boat with the heads of animals sticking out of the windows.
(Image from Creation.com)
The same goes for many animals, for instance, a young elephant would be a lot easier to look after that a fully-grown one, and it would eat a lot less!
(copyright Minden Pictures)
Exercise isn’t really a problem – most animals don’t need any more exercise than their pen/cage would have allowed, and for those that did (such as horses) they could have had an exercise chamber to walk them up and down or some such thing.
A Przewalski's horse…the
original created horse would have looked much like this.
(photo by http://morho.devianart.com)
What about air-breathing marine animals?
*The Answers Book (Ham, K., Sarfati, J., Wieland, C., Triune Press: 1999) page 173 -174
In reality, the boat would have
been a monster of a thing, and there was certainly no cuteness about it.
For one thing, can you imagine the noise of thousands of animals put
together? Just imagine the sound of feeding
time at the zoo, and then multiply it by a thousand. Think of that ringing in your ears, all day long! Not to mention the smell…and most likely,
Noah and the other inhabitants of the boat would have got dreadfully seasick –
and with all that work to do!
Pooper-scooper
As an animal lover and owner, I
know that they make a lot of mess. Of course, the thousands of animals on the ark
would have made much, much more, and there were only eight people to look after
them. It sounds rather daunting, but probably wasn’t to bad - after all, apart
from work, there wasn’t much else to do!
It is thought that Noah could have
made sloped floors on the pens, so that waste could slide down into a “gutter.”
Then they could easily have flushed it away, or decomposed it.*
Erm, dinosaurs are huge. How did THEY get on there, eh?
There’s a rather simple answer to this question. The dinosaurs didn’t have to be fully-grown -
they would only have had to take babies, or “teenagers” (juveniles).
The same goes for many animals, for instance, a young elephant would be a lot easier to look after that a fully-grown one, and it would eat a lot less!
What about
exercise?
Exercise isn’t really a problem – most animals don’t need any more exercise than their pen/cage would have allowed, and for those that did (such as horses) they could have had an exercise chamber to walk them up and down or some such thing.
I
know the ark was huge, but there where SO many animals…how did they fit ‘em
all?
Back then,
there would be a lot less variety in the animals “kinds” (basically, animals
that can interbreed). For instance, in the
equine family, there wouldn’t have been Arabians, Thoroughbreds, Clydesdales,
Friesians etc., but only one horse kind. Possibly donkeys and zebras came from their
family as well.
(photo by http://morho.devianart.com)
Likewise,
they didn’t have to take Yorkshire terriers, basset hounds, golden retrievers, beagles,
sausage dogs and poodles – they would probably only had to take one dog kind,
from which came dingoes, wolves, coyotes…you get the picture!
Foxes, Pomeranians and wolves- all dog kinds!
(wolf photo by http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/wolf/)
This quote puts the size of the ark into perspective: “[it] was the equivalent volume of 522 standard railroad stock cars, each of which can hold 240 sheep…the 16,000 animals would only occupy 1200 m3 (42,000 cubic feet) or 14.4 stock cars. …[All] the insect species would occupy a total volume of only 1000 m3, or another 12 cars.”**
Well, how did they feed them all?
(wolf photo by http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/wolf/)
This quote puts the size of the ark into perspective: “[it] was the equivalent volume of 522 standard railroad stock cars, each of which can hold 240 sheep…the 16,000 animals would only occupy 1200 m3 (42,000 cubic feet) or 14.4 stock cars. …[All] the insect species would occupy a total volume of only 1000 m3, or another 12 cars.”**
Well, how did they feed them all?
As all the
animals, including insects, would have only taken up 26.4 out of 522 railroad
stock cars, there would have been plenty of room left over to store food!
There have
been questions as to how they fed carnivorous animals, such as tigers. Well,
carnivorous animals can quite happily live on a vegetarian diet today, and back
then it was a lot closer to creation. A
certain lioness was fed on pasta till she was several years old, and she was
perfectly healthy. And many people all across the world feed their dogs on rice
and vegetables. As a matter of fact, I
used to have a dog that I would often feed porridge. His coat shone with
health.
What about air-breathing marine animals?
Marine
animals such a whales and dolphins certainly couldn’t have come on the
ark! So how did they survive?
Most of
them probably didn’t survive. The turbulence of the water, upheavals of mud
and such would have caused most of them to die.
But only two had to survive to carry on the species (a male and a
female!), and I’m sure God took care of that.
*The Answers Book (Ham, K., Sarfati, J., Wieland, C., Triune Press: 1999) page 173 -174
** ibid, page 172.
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pictures from Google images
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