Page 152 - The Miracle of Migration in Animals

THE MIRACLE OF MIGRATION IN ANIMALS

After starting out on their journey from the Sargasso Sea, these
remarkable creatures display various kinds of miraculous behavior.
When hatched, they have no one to guide them on their journey of

some 6,000 kilometers (3,700 miles), yet without getting lost, they
make their way from Sargasso to where their parents lived, in the
rivers of Europe and North America. At this point, the warm ocean
current known as the Gulf Stream helps get the little fish on the right
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track for Europe. Finally they reach the rivers where they will live
until maturity when—as if by common agreement—they all swim
from the rivers to the ocean and start out for Sargasso where they
were born and where they will lay their eggs. The cycle is repeated in
the same way.
The transparent juvenile eels, 6 to 7 centimeters (2.5 inches) in
length swim upstream, close to estuary and river banks. The return of
the glass eels begins in different places, in different seasons lasting
from autumn to the end of spring. These young eels show incredible
determination in their attempts to travel upstream, often crawling up

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small waterfalls. Here it should be noted that eels have poor swim-
ming ability. In spite of this they migrate in the ocean covering some
10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) to breed and die. But why, when there
are so many places closer, do they choose the Sargasso Sea in particu-
lar? Scientists have tried to answer the question of why the European
eel migrates over such a long distance. It is also rather surprising that
without exception, all newly hatched eels go on a long journey to the
region their parents came from, instead of remaining where they are.
That these fish set off on such a journey as soon as they come into the
world with no adults to show them the way indicates that this impe-
tus is given to them before they are born. In that case, who can impart

such knowledge?
The evolutionists have no answers to these questions. No chain

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