Dandy Designs
Green Turtle Migration
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Here is another amazing migration.

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One of the truly remarkable evidences of design is in the migrations of various animals over great distances. Birds, whales, butterflies, eels, caribou and a myriad of other living organisms do incredible things when they migrate. One such animal is the Green Turtle (Chelonia mydas).

These turtles live along the coast of Brazil in shallow waters that have abundant growths of sea grasses. The life cycle of these turtles is not so unusual except for their breeding habits.

A large percentage of these turtles lay their eggs on Ascension Island--a small island in the mid-Atlantic. This remote island is some 2,000 miles from the coast of Brazil and is very difficult to reach because the prevailing equatorial current runs from Ascension to the coast of Brazil. It takes the adult turtles some 50 days to fight their way from the coastal waters of Brazil to Ascension Island and nearly 30 days to return, swimming with the equatorial current.

There are many questions which one can ask about this situation. "What advantages does such a migration have?" That one is easy. Ascension Island has sandy beaches where the turtles can lay their eggs. There are no predators on the island so that the percentage of the eggs that hatch is unusually high. When the hatchings are ready, they paddle out into the equatorial current and float back to Brazil.

Perhaps a more puzzling question is "How do the adults make the journey and locate Ascension Island?" It has been noted that even blind turtles are able to make the journey. No one really understands how the journey is made or what has given the turtles this ability. Evolutionists are quick to point out that continental drift might explain how this ability came about. If Brazil and Africa were once connected, then as the continents drifted apart the turtles would have to cover larger and larger distances. Two major problems make this explanation impossible. First, Ascension Island is a recent volcanic island according to geologists--not part of the African continent. Second, many of this same species of turtle breeds on the coast of Costa Rica in the Caribbean far to the North. Why would some of the turtles go North if continental drift were the explanation.

The point is that like most attempts to explain migration in terms of chance, this one falls far short. To believe that God provided for these slow and harmless creatures in a way that assures their survival is far more reasonable than to attempt to invent a series of accidents that might explain their instinctive abilities.

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