Both secularist and creationist scientists have always sought to understand how fish have colonized lakes and ponds throughout the world. Fish do this even in the most remote, isolated regions, including mountainous areas. In many of these, human assistance can be ruled out. For example, there are rock pools in remote deserts which only form after one of the rare rainstorms. Yet fish often appear shortly afterwards, before the water dries up again.

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It had long been assumed that fish eggs stuck to the legs and feathers of waterfowl or other birds drinking or feeding before flying on to another lake or pond. There the eggs detached, and fish later hatched. But there is almost no empirical evidence for this process occurring.

However, scientists recently studied captive mallards (wild ducks) and found that a small percentage of fish eggs are able to survive being swallowed by the ducks. They subsequently pass through the gut with a high-enough rate of survivability of the eggs to ensure the successful dispersal of the fish. The eggs used in the experiment were those of the common and Prussian carp. The same means of dispersal has also been found to occur for insect larvae, soft plants and seeds.

This was very likely the means by which fish quickly colonized all regions of the world after the global Flood. As people spread out from the Babel dispersion they would have had fish to eat wherever they went, amongst all the other foods available, whenever they encountered inland bodies of water.

• Lovas-Kiss, A. and 7 others, Experimental evidence of dispersal of invasive cyprinid eggs inside migratory waterfowl, Proc. Natl Acad. Sc. USA 117 (27):15397–15399, Jul 2020.