A hiker tells of hiking in a remote part of the Arctic one summer, when he spotted a small group of caribou watching him. Then he was startled to see a huge number coming his way and realized he was in the path of a migration! Soon the caribou were all around him, but they ignored him completely and soon passed by.
Every spring about half a million of these deer-like animals migrate northward from the northern part of western Canada, parts of Alaska and the Yukon Territory, traveling hundreds of miles to the meadow-covered shores of the Arctic Sea. There the Creator has provided great meadows of nourishing grass and large fields of a tasty plant called lichen, or reindeer grass, which is part of the tundra growing over marshy areas.
The females, which have made the trip ahead of the males, give birth to their calves there. Baby caribou are such tough little creatures that they can stand as soon as they are born, and in less than a month they can outrun a threatening grizzly bear. The males arrive some time later and stay with their families for several weeks. These large herds often share the grazing grounds with other caribou herds without any problem, except for the big males that sometimes fight each other. But when it is time to leave, the herds never get confused with one another.
Many of the wild animals living along the routes they travel eat caribou meat—bears, cougars and wolves. These animals stalk the calves particularly and do capture quite a few on the outside edges of the herd. But these vicious animals don't dare chase very deeply into the herds, or they'd be trampled by the big hoofs or meet up with the sharp horns of the males. As a result, so few caribou are caught by these enemies that it doesn't noticeably affect the size of the huge herds.
There are half a dozen or so species of caribou involved in both the northbound and southbound migrations, but they don't try to move together. If one group happens to overtake another along the way, they are usually quite friendly. Then somewhere along the route each group knows instinctively where to turn off, and the others continue on their way.
As we consider these vast numbers of beasts, large and small, traveling such great distances each year with never a mistake as to their destination, we cannot help but be impressed with God’s ways with all He has created. As our opening verse says, our Lord, the Creator of all things, has “done wonderful things.”
In the next issue we will look more closely at some of the individual groups that make up these tremendous herds of caribou.
(to be continued)
ML-04/27/2008