Castaways

I've discussed this before, but I have more documentation this time around. A stock objection to the global flood interpretation is how animals migrated from Armenia (where the ark bottomed out) to other continents and islands. (Of course, that's not a problem for the local flood interpretation.)

Creationists posit floating log mats or vegetation mats. In addition, sailors can intentionally or unintentionally introduce new species into foreign habitat, viz. pets, livestock, game animals, rats. Pets and livestock can become feral. 

My immediate point is not to evaluate the merits of these mechanisms. Rather, Darwinian opponents of flood geology ironically face a parallel problem. Darwinians labor to account for the presence of (admittedly sparse) fauna and flora on some extremely remote islands. They aren't prepared to say the fauna and flora originated on the islands. They aren't prepared to say the same species independently evolved on different scattered islands. 

So they have to speculate on ways they might have gotten there. It was too far to swim. Plants can't fly. How does one account for the presence of familiar fauna on such geographically isolated islands?

Explanatory options were limited. It reduces to educated guesswork. At this juncture, Darwinians resort to the same naturalistic explanations as creationists:

In the South Pacific there is no such thing as a deserted island. They may be the most isolated in the world, but every one of the region's 20,000 islands has been colonised, from New Guinea - home to birds of paradise and the tribe whose brutal initiation ceremony turns young warriors into 'crocodile' men - to Fiji, French Polynesia and Hawaii. 

This is the story of the ultimate castaways - from saltwater crocodiles and giant eels to crested iguanas and weird frogs - who succeeded against all odds to reach islands thousands of miles apart. These journeys are no mean feat. It has been estimated that an average of one species in every 60,000 years makes it to Hawaii. Incredibly, many of these colonisers made it to the islands thanks to some of the most violent forces of nature like cyclones and tsunamis. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00kmv11 

The second instalment looks at how plants, animals and humans colonised even the most remote islands. Most pioneers came from the west, with New Guinea acting as the launch pad. The saltwater crocodile is one species which managed to swim the 60-mile crossing to the next island group, the Solomons. The mass spawning of groupers on a Solomon Island reef releases millions of eggs, which drift on ocean currents to establish new populations. The activity allows grey reef sharks to snatch a few distracted groupers. Few animals made it to Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, 1000 miles further east. Fruit bats were the only mammals to cross the ocean divide, but smaller animals were carried here by cyclones and jet stream winds. In the absence of ground predators, invertebrates have reached monstrous proportions. Fijian crested iguanas are thought to have floated here on rafts of vegetation. Seabirds have made the crossing to French Polynesia, where their rich guano helped fertilise barbed seeds stuck to their feathers and turn barren coral atolls into fertile groves. One plant needs no such help. Coconuts can survive drifting for two months at sea and lay roots into bare sand. Before the arrival of humans, fewer than 500 species colonised Hawaii in 30 million years. Once established, they evolved into countless new varieties. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pacific_(TV_series)#2._.22Castaways.22