Synchronized Birth

One of the many designs seen in nature is the amazing balance between prey and predator. To keep plant-eating animals from totally cleaning out all vegetation, there is a need to control their population. To avoid eating all the plant eaters, there is a need to control predators' numbers. There is a large number of ways in which this is accomplished. One way that plant-eating animals avoid over-predation in Alaska is a phenomenon biologists call "synchronized birth."

Moose In the Kenai Peninsula, there are about 6,500 moose. The black bear, brown beer, and wolf population adds up to about 4,000. These predators eat sick and injured moose year around, but they will also eat baby moose during the first few days of their lives if they can find them. If the baby moose were born over a month or two period of time, this predation could make a sizable dent in the moose population. As it is, all baby moose are born on the same day--May 25th. Within a day or two, the babies are capable of speed and mobility and no longer vulnerable to predators. The ultimate result is that very few baby moose are eaten by predators.

Caribou Caribou use the same process to reduce predation of their young. Maintaining a balance between food and population is a struggle mankind has not mastered yet, but God's design is a great and working system that only gets into trouble when man interferes with it. These systems are highly complex and are minimally understood by man. Chance is a poor explanation for all of this design. Complexity of this nature is only possible by intelligence of the highest order.

--Reference: Alaska, October 2001, page 13.

Back to Contents Does God Exist?, NovDec03.