Re: Evidences of God - Animals - Arctic Tern

This is a post in a series of postings.  If you haven't read the
previous post then please do so as it sets the way for this one.
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The argument I am trying to make at this point is that we can see
evidences of a designer in the world around us.  This is the first post
of several posts where I want to look at some animals that exist here on
earth.

I thought I would start with one of my personal favorite examples -- the
Arctic Tern.

Now the arctic tern is a bird that lives on the north slopes of Alaska
and Canada during the summer months in the northern hemisphere, and then
migrates to the southern tip of South America during the summer in the
southern hemisphere.  That is a round trip of up to 24,000 US miles each
year.

Groups have done research on the arctic tern to determine how it knows
the route.  They have tried confusing its sense of smell, its sense of
sight, used magnetic scramblers, and host of other things, but the birds
still make the north to south migration.

Eggs have been taken out of the nests of the terns, incubated, and then
released after the migration had occurred.  They took the birds and
released them in their habitat on the north slopes of Canada, and the
birds made the journey.

The researchers released them from Wisconsin, and they made the journey
successfully.

From what I understand, they even took a bird and released it in 
Australia.  Even though no arctic tern (that we know of) ever made a
migration from Australia to South America, this tern was able land in
South America, not far from the rest of its flock.

These birds couldn't have learned the behavior.  It had to be instinct
in them.

There are a number of possible explanations of how the terns gained this
instinct.  Many of you reading this are probably thinking to yourselves
that the obvious reason for this would be evolution -- survival of the
fittest.  But why would the tern need to make this long journey to survive?

Many animals migrate to escape the cold... but why would the arctic tern
need to go from one extreme to another?  Why couldn't they just stop
somewhere else?

Ok, if it is not cold, what about food supply?  Maybe hey had to evolve 
and make the journey because they have a narrow diet and you can only 
get that food in those areas during the summer months.  Makes sense, but 
the tern eats lots of things.  They have a very wide diet, much like a 
seagull.

Now some may say that you would have to throw out a designer as well.
Why would someone like an all-knowing, all-powerful being make a little
bird fly thousands of miles round trip?

There is a bigger picture here, though.  If you zoom out a little bit
you might realize that the arctic tern is part of the food chain.  The
fact of the matter is that many plants and animals in two remote,
isolated, very delicate ecosystems rely on the arctic tern for food and
nutrients.

It may not be in the tern's best interest to make the journey.  It may
not help the species survive at all.  If the tern didn't make the
journey, though, several species of plants an animals in those isolated
ecosystems would go into extinction.

I would suggest that the best explanation would be that the system was 
designed that way.

Again, this is only one example.