People under the persuasion of the Evolutionary model for development of various animal life forms often try to challenge Creationists by the idea that there are unique animals on islands far from the place where Noah’s ark is said to have landed and released it’s animals. Some of these animals cannot be found on other continents. For example, the only place having Kangaroos today is Australia, a large continental island which is separated by large oceans from the continent where Noah’s ark would have landed. So, how did animals get from Noah’s ark to places like Australia? Let’s consider a few points.
From a biblical model, all the animals came off the Ark around Mt. Ararat in Turkey (See Genesis 8:4). From there they would have spread out. As people spread out, which largely happened after the Tower of Babel incident in Genesis 11, they would have likely taken some animals with them. Josephus (the famous Jewish Historian in the 1st Century AD) says that some people spread out by ships to various islands.** It is likely that certain animals, though not all obviously, would have been taken with them. Kangaroos or a similar/related creature could have been taken along on those ships to Australia and then gotten well established there. At the same time, populations of such animals in other places could have been sparse and were either killed off or died off for various environmental reasons (i.e. Existing predators, famines, etc.). Some animals can establish well in one climate while others establish themselves better in another. It is a fact that today we see Kangaroos living naturally only in Australia, just as one example. Their population is well established there.
Various animal populations by kind do vary in size and location over time. Sometimes certain creature populations die off in one area for one reason or another. Often they keep to a certain region and climate in which they can survive and thrive. One example is that of the American Bison (commonly called the “Buffalo”). This precise animal is unique to America (i.e.Bison Bison). However, there is a related and very similar Bison called the wisent which lives in Europe (this animal also became nearly extinct at one time there, but has come back a bit number-wise thanks to preservation efforts). There were other ancestors of a slightly different variety living in Asia and even Canada at one time but these groups have slowly died off and disappeared for various reasons. You can learn more about the Bison by clicking here.
There is also the very real possibility that God could have guided certain animal groups in patterns of migration, just as He also had led the various animals onto the ark to begin with (See Gen. 6:20, i.e. Noah did not have to gather them – instead, God had divinely led them). This kind of factor would have worked in harmony with the factors mentioned in the previous paragraphs.
Another possible way for certain animals to have spread to places like Australia, other than ships, are land bridges which could have been crossed had certain points of earth been higher in the past or had the waters themselves been lower because of higher percentages of iced-over polar areas immediately after the flood, or maybe a combination of both. Even Evolutionists will assert that this is how people got to the Americas (over a supposed ancient land-bridge from Asia/Russia through Alaska and on down). Looking at a map of Australia it would not be hard to envision some land bridges coming down from South-east Asia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and onto the Australian continent.
To summarize, it would NOT have been hard for animal populations to migrate over land bridges to various locations or to be introduced to some new areas by human beings traveling by ship to new places of permanent settlement. Certain populations could thrive in some areas (by absence of predators or the presence of advantageous climate), while dying off and not becoming well established in other areas.
From the Answers in Genesis website there are some other great points on this very question. You can view their article here.
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**“After this they were dispersed abroad, on account of their languages, and went out by colonies everywhere; and each colony took possession of that land which they lighted upon, and unto which God led them, so that the whole continent was filled with them, both inland and the maritime countries. There were some also who passed over the sea in ships, and inhabited the islands; and some of those nations do still retain the denominations which were given them by their first founders; but some have lost them also…” – Josephus, Bk. 1, Chap. 5.
