How Could Noah Care for Dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark?

In Parts 1–4, we discussed the logically derived biblical reasons for believing that dinosaurs were onboard Noah’s ark, showed fossil evidence of creatures (found alongside dinosaurs) that would have been on Noah’s ark, answered the common question, “Why haven’t dinosaur and human fossils ever been found together?” and dealt with questions surrounding their numbers and sizes, along with the feasibility of feeding these creatures.

In this part, we will unpack several more objections that come up when discussing the idea of dinosaurs onboard Noah’s ark—such as how eight people could have cared for 7,000 animals over the course of a year.

How Were the Animals Cared For?

Despite scoffing often heard from skeptics, the fact is that studies of non-mechanized animal care indicate that just a few adults could have cared for 7,000 creatures.1

Modern Bible skeptics often love to scoff at the possibility that a single family could coordinate such a huge undertaking, citing the enormous difficulties such as feeding so many animals every day, where their waste would go, and how their water would be provided and replenished.

But the answer is simply the adage, “Don’t work harder, work smarter.” And although most people today try to increase their step count to shave off a few more calories, the biggest key in accomplishing this would be preparing systems beforehand while building and loading the ark to avoid unnecessary walking around once their voyage was underway.2 What do I mean by that?

Well, “Noah probably stored food and water near each animal. Even better, drinking water could have been piped into troughs, just as the Chinese have used bamboo pipes for this purpose for thousands of years.”3

“The use of some sort of self-feeders, as is commonly done for birds, would have been relatively easy [to set up] and probably essential.”4 Skeptics often point to animals that require special care or diets as impossibilities for Noah’s ark, but “this assumes that animals with specialized diets today were likewise specialized at the time of the Flood.”5

That may not have been the case in the ancestral kinds taken on the ark. As we saw in Part 4 when we discussed plant-eating crocodiles—creatures can, in many cases, often subsist on food uncommon to their normal preferences. Even if there were some “special case” food requirements for a few kinds of animals, this wouldn’t have been an overwhelming amount of extra work for Noah’s family.

With Noah being over 500 years old, it just makes sense that he would have had the knowledge to incorporate automatic feeding systems that only had to be refilled occasionally using simple tools like wheelbarrows, pitchforks, and food scoops.

With Noah being over 500 years old, it just makes sense that he would have had the knowledge to incorporate automatic feeding systems that only had to be refilled occasionally using simple tools like wheelbarrows, pitchforks, and food scoops.

Rainwater collected from gutters built into the roof would provide ongoing refills of water cisterns, considerably reducing the need for water storage. The sheer size of the ark eliminates that as a necessity, although it would simply make sense to have done this. The most likely solution would be a combination of both.

Dinosaur Exercise?

Some might wonder how larger creatures like some of the dinosaurs would have dealt with being cooped up without much exercise for that long. However, the dim lighting in the ark would have a calming effect on many reptiles and amphibians, making them largely inactive. Inactive crocodiles, for instance, can last up to three years without a meal.

Although some larger animals may have needed to get out and stretch occasionally, Noah could have come up with some practical solutions that wouldn’t require too much extra space, such as having a common area where larger animals could be brought via a system of gates, perhaps exercising on a rotation schedule.

What About the Dinosaur Doo-Doo?

In the original Jurassic Park movie, there’s a memorable moment where the character of Dr. Ian Malcolm (played by actor Jeff Goldblum) expresses astonishment when he comes upon a large mound of collected dinosaur droppings.

It emphasized the somewhat humorous and obvious conclusion many Bible critics regularly throw against the historical account: How could Noah and company possibly have dealt with the ark’s leading export—manure and animal urine?

It is a good question when you think about it, as there would certainly have been many potential problems piling up over their year-long voyage if it couldn’t be handled properly. One would have been a possible build-up of methane gas, something that any firefighter will tell you is nothing to take lightly.

Skeptics rightly point out that a dinosaur has to do what every creature has to do, so what exactly would Noah have done with all that doo-doo? They will often tout statistics such as the fact that just one adult elephant defecates about 12 to 15 times—and can produce more than 100 kilograms, or 220 pounds—of dung per day.

This means that over the span of a year, an elephant will produce over 40 tons of dung. So they mock the idea of Noah’s ark being turned into a massive floating outhouse when considering the idea of sauropods and other huge dinosaurs onboard.

First, we must remember the likelihood of juvenile (or sub-adult) representatives of larger animals—such as dinosaurs, elephants, rhinos, etc.—onboard the ark, which would mean far less solid waste than skeptics like to project.

Remember, the end goal of bringing them onboard the ark was to keep them alive and to ensure that they would “be fruitful and multiply on the earth” (Genesis 8:17). Remember, bringing full-sized dinosaurs past their reproductive prime seems illogical.

When calculating the entirety of the waste produced by the entire group of onboard contributors, this would bring the amount down to 12 or so tons per day, which would have been a huge amount of work if it required people for direct disposal or neutralization.

But of course, the key to keeping the enclosures largely waste-free was for Noah and his family to get the animals and ark’s design to do the work for them.

But of course, the key to keeping the enclosures largely waste-free was for Noah and his family to get the animals and ark’s design to do the work for them. “In this regard, there could have been slatted floors, and animals could have trampled their waste [and soiled bedding] into the pits below,”6 whose angled floors possibly dropped the waste out into the ocean.

Alternatively, sloped floors in other animal enclosures could have allowed the waste to flow into large central gutters,7 again allowing gravity to do most of the collective work. “Noah’s family could have then dumped this overboard without excessive expenditure of manpower.”8

“Small animals, such as birds, could have multiple levels in their enclosures, and waste could have simply accumulated at the bottom of each”9 and been collected and disposed of periodically.

As per the urine, the same principles apply. Noah could have built grooved floors, perhaps with gutters, to help automate the waste collection. And again, bamboo would have been a practical choice to pipe away liquid waste because it resists urine’s corrosive effects.

Liquid and solid waste could also have been emptied into a cavity inside the ship, called a moon pool, that opened into the ocean. Although the concept has been around for a long time, it wasn’t used much until recently, with the arrival of drill ships designed for oil exploration. But today, it’s now incorporated into modern ships such as the RRS Sir David Attenborough.

Moonpool

To understand how a moonpool operates, picture a ship with a hole in the bottom of the hull and a wall surrounding the hole all the way up through the top deck. Water won’t enter the ship because it’s contained inside the moonpool’s walls, but it moves up and down like a piston as the ship rides the waves.

There are several sound engineering reasons to believe Noah may have included such a feature. First, it would help relieve hull stress as the vessel crested a wave. Second, the rising and falling water within the moonpool would act like an air exchanger by drawing in fresh and extracting stale air.

Third, recent research has shown that moonpools induce resistance to movement, which may have dampened wave motion, making Noah’s voyage more comfortable for all aboard.

Toxic Gases?

The Bible is not specific about the kind and size of the window on the ark. However, “it is reasonable to believe that one relatively small window would have adequately ventilated the Ark. Of course if there were a window along the top center section, which the Bible allows, all occupants would be even more comfortable.”10

“It is also interesting to note that the convective movement of air, driven by temperature differences between the warm-blooded animals and the cold interior surfaces, would have been significant enough to drive the flow of air. Plus, wind blowing into the window would have enhanced the ventilation further.”11

“There is no reason to believe that the levels of these gases within the Ark would have approached hazardous levels.”12 Potentially dangerous manure gases like methane (which is half the density of air) would quickly find their way out of the window at the top of the ark by the constant movement of the great ship.13

While the problem of manure odor may, at first thought, seem inconceivable to us sanitized and (so-called) more civilized modern homeowners, we should remember that having barns separate from human living quarters is a relatively recent development. Throughout history, humans lived together with their farm animals regularly.14 Of course, Bible critics still might ask how dinosaurs would fit.

How Would Dinosaurs Fit?

As “the average dinosaur is about the size of a bison, and the estimated number of dinosaur kinds (of which only a pair of each was brought) may have been about 80–85— meaning a maximum of 170 dinosaurs were taken aboard the ark.”15

“The ark had adequate space for every kind of dinosaur, particularly if God sent sub-adults to Noah. For example, the average 24 x 7 ft. cattle trailer can safely haul a maximum of eleven 1,200-pound cows. If cattle were transported with a common semi-truck trailer of 53 x 8.5 ft., an average of 28 could be safely hauled.”16

So “even assuming the maximum number of dinosaur kinds, only six of the 450 semi-truck trailer storage capacity . . . would be needed for the dinosaurs.”17

When you consider “the density of animals on the Ark, compared to the volume of enclosed space, [it] was much less than we find in some modern, mass animal housing . . . (such as chicken farms), which requires no special mechanical ventilation.”18

“While the voyage of the Ark may not have been comfortable or easy, it was certainly doable, even”19 with dinosaurs onboard. Noah accomplished everything God commanded because he knew his Creator had promised to save him and his household and deliver them into whatever new environment awaited them after the floodwaters subsided.

That leads us to even more questions about Noah’s ark and the great flood that we often hear—questions regarding how the creatures could have survived in the devastated landscape that awaited them after the flood. Stay tuned for Part 6, where we’ll answer several more questions surrounding how dinosaurs could have survived after leaving Noah’s ark.