There are other factors that make the gathering of the animals less of a problem than is commonly supposed. The world before the flood may have consisted of just a single continent, eliminating the need for animals to cross oceans. The postulated water vapor canopy covering the earth at that time caused the whole earth to have a warm, tropical-like climate. In such a setting the different types of animals would have been more evenly distributed over the land, with each type capable of living almost anywhere. These two factors (single continent plus one climate) meant that all of the animals for the ark may have lived fairly close by.

Also, animals did not originally fear humans and only ate plants. This would have made them much easier to deal with. Both the fear of man and the allowance for animals to eat meat were introduced by God after the flood (Gen 9:2-3). Some animals may have already started to eat meat prior to the flood, as the scriptures seem to indicate that the animals had also become violent (Gen 6:11) and that God was "grieved that I have made them [men and animals]" (Gen 6:7).

Gen 6:20 states the God brought the animals to the ark. Gish speculates that the migration instinct found in some animals may have been introduced as this time. Likewise, the animals would have been easier to deal with in the ark if many of them were in a state of hibernation. Both migration and hibernation are traits used to escape difficult living conditions, which did not exist before the flood.