I’ve argued that God created all the plants and animals “after their kind.” Men and women also reproduce after their kind, but they have an additional feature missing in the animals: God’s image. The dominion of all creation that God entrusted to man was to “care” for it all, as he said when he put that man and woman in the garden of Eden with the charge to “tend it and care for it” (See Genesis 2:15). You might say that Adam and Eve were the “shepherds” of all creation, charged with taking care of them. An essential part of caring is feeding them. God addresses this in Genesis 6:21, “Also take with you every sort of food that is eaten and store it up. It shall serve as food for you and for them.” Looking back at the creation account in Genesis 1:29-30, we read, “And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.”
One central question in this regard deals with the carnivores. Much of our scientific evidence that supports a universal flood as recorded in Genesis, also establishes that there were meat-eating animals before the flood. What did they eat on the ark? Did they eat each other? There are several reasonable solutions. First, as one website suggests, “during times of war or natural disasters when meat was unobtainable, zoos and wildlife parks have utilized meat substitutes like nuts, peanut butter, coconuts, beans, soy, and other legumes as their protein-source feed for the animals.”[1] Second, the same website argues for the possibility of hibernation or some similar state which lessened the appetite of such animals. But to me, the most reasonable answer is that even if there were pre-flood carnivores, as my source suggests, “it is still possible that the animals that God sent to Noah did not eat meat or were omnivores that could have survived for one year without meat.” Maybe this is why dinosaurs were left behind. They were either too carnivorous or ate too many plants to make their preservation on the ark possible. Or maybe they were just too big! Perhaps we’ll find out one day.
Some might argue that Noah could not have taken that much food on board to feed all the animals for a whole year. Well, maybe he planted the seeds and grew the crops he needed on the ark itself. I don’t know. I tell my grandsons that I might not have an answer to all the possible questions that could be asked about the Bible but I choose to believe in a God who loves me and has my best interest foremost in mind. If Jesus can feed five thousand men with two fish and five small loaves of bread and then retrieve 12 baskets full of leftovers, I have no problem believing that Noah had enough food for the animals on the ark.
[1] https://answersingenesis.org/noahs-ark/feeding-carnivores-noahs-ark/