Wildlife Thriving in Radiation-Contaminated Areas of Chernobyl

It’s impossible to hear the name of Chernobyl and not shudder, remembering the catastrophic nuclear disaster that took place in 1986 at the nuclear-power plant in Ukraine. More than 100,000 people were permanently evacuated from Chernobyl, and surrounding areas. A family of moose have lunch in their home at the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

This study could also provide a few useful insight into understanding how wildlife is affected by other similar meltdowns, such as the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011 in Japan.

“I’ve been working, studying, and taking photos of the wonderful wildlife in the Chernobyl area for over 20 years and am very pleased our work is reaching an worldwide scientific audience”, says Tatiana Deryabina from the Polessye State Radioecological Reserve in Belarus, a few miles from the site of the Chernobyl accident. An explosion and a fire at the plant released a plume of radioactive material into the atmosphere, spreading over several countries and triggering the permanent evacuation of an estimated 116,000 people from the 1,622-square-mile Chernobyl exclusion zone. The study was not able to examine the effects of radiation on individual animals, but many appeared to be healthy. They analyzed population-density estimates that were based on winter track-survey routes, and compared them with the numbers from other uncontaminated reserves in the area.

They found that there are seven times more wolves in the exclusion zone than in nearby parks.

Jim Beasley, of the University of Georgia, said that the results of the study give evidence for the fact that the area is now freed for the pressures of human habitation. Wildlife populations there – shaggy-haired wild boar, long-legged elk, the howling choruses of wolves that so captivated Hinton last August – are flourishing. For the first time since the Chernobyl accident, researchers have long-term census data that reveal thriving wildlife populations in the zone.

“Our data on time trends can not separate likely positive effects of human abandonment of the Chernobyl exclusion zone from a potential negative effect of radiation …”

According to a recent study, the animals not only survived but are now thriving in the abandoned area. Smith tells Quartz that the findings are a “remarkable illustration of the damage we do just by inhabiting an area, by farming, foresting, fishing, and hunting” he adds that human habitation “damages the ecosystem more than a nuclear accident”.