THE UNBELIEVABLE MIGRATION OF SALMON

Salmon are wonderful living beings that display the fact of creation. They are wonderful living beings that reach the ocean as a result of a long journey after hatching in fresh water, that grow in salty water, that swim upstream by traveling thousands of miles in the ocean with a great migration and find the tributary where they grew up without being confused and that return to the source of fresh water where they were born.

All salmon are born in streams, hatching the eggs left by their mothers. There is a sac in the form of an egg yolk that contains the nutrients required for the newborn salmon to develop and that is under the belly of the newborn salmon in the first stage. Newborn salmon feed on the yolk sac until they get big enough to look for food. About a year later, thousands of salmon begin to migrate along the riverbed. That is their first journey; finding the place where this river flows into the sea is the biggest problem awaiting them because they will follow the same route years later and come to the fresh water where they were born and will spawn there.

Salmon, which spend most of their adulthood traveling in the ocean, reach their destination, that is, the Pacific Ocean after months. An astonishing new migration will start for these salmon, which have grown thoroughly and reached the reproductive maturity after spending a few years in the sea. The first problem for them is to swim across that sea and find the estuary where the river flows into the sea. However, all salmon easily find the place where the river flows into the sea on the first try.

Nevertheless, a bigger problem awaits them after that. Salmon start swimming in the river bed, which they had passed to reach the sea years ago, this time in the opposite direction, upstream. They struggle against the strong current of the river in the opposite direction of the stream. They overcome obstacles that seem impassable with an incredible effort in these migrations; they even cross low waterfalls by jumping up a few meters. The salmon, which have to pass through shallow waters in this journey, move toward their destination steadfastly, without getting tired despite the birds, bears and several wild animals waiting to hunt them.

However, the difficulties are not limited to the ones mentioned above because these salmon, which are born in any tributary of a river in the inner parts of the land, must reach this place. While the rivers are divided into several tributaries, the salmon must both swim against the current and fight the enemies and find the right way as well. Let us think about it:

You were born in a house in a street in a neighborhood of a city. When you grew up a bit, you left the house, walked for days and traveled 4000 kilometers away from home. After many years, you wanted to return to the house where you were born. Do you think it is possible for you to remember each of the streets that you passed through only once when you were young and to return home?

Scientists who did various research to understand how salmon made this splendid journey came to the conclusion that salmon found their way by “smelling”. Every water, every river, has a unique smell. Young salmon memorize the smells one by one during their first journey toward the sea. They find their place of birth with the help of smells in their memory during the return journey.

Now we ask:

Who put the nutrients necessary for the newborn baby salmon to grow in the sac in the form of an egg yolk under their bellies? Who took this precaution by having mercy on them before they were born?

Why do salmon not continue living in the rivers where they were born but swim thousands of kilometers and go to the sea? Migration is a concept that contains why and how questions. How do they decide for this migration? How do they plan it? How do they know where to go though they have never been anywhere before? While all this is possible through many attributes like knowledge, will and power, is it ever possible to deny the existence of a power and will that and creates and drives those fish by ascribing those attributes to the fish?

What deniers call instinct is in fact Allah’s guiding and driving them. Deniers have described all these attributes as an instinctive feeling so as not to ascribe them to Allah. The answer to the question where this instinct comes from has not been given yet.

Why do salmon put up with such great hardship to reach their goal with a long and troublesome journey to the place where they were born despite the currents, waterfalls and enemies that encounter them after they grow and reach adulthood? Besides, they do so not for themselves, but only to lay their eggs in those waters. Who placed compassion and mercy in these salmon, lifeless and unconscious causes or blind coincidence?

How does each salmon find their way without confusion in this unbelievable journey? While we humans, the most intelligent beings, cannot even find the exit door of a large building that we enter, how can these salmon manage to do it? Do not say with smell because it is never possible to detect a 4000-km way only with smell? If we, intelligent beings, were given such a sense of smell, could we smell and complete this migration successfully? Of course not. We would not be able to complete this migration without a device like a map, compass, and GPS.

Who placed the sense of smell and memory that helped them find the way? Did causes that lack attributes like knowledge, will and power do it?

Salmon show us very clearly both with their creation and miraculous life adventures that it is Allah who both creates and guides them. Salmon are causes and the extraordinary work they do is the effect. If the cause is simple and the effect is perfect, the cause cannot be the doer. The wonderful things these fish do can make even the most stubborn people accept the existence of our Lord, who teaches the fish their duties behind the scenes.