Wildlife Returning To Chernobyl

The wilderness is encroaching over abandoned towns in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. One of the elderly residents who refused to evacuate the contaminated area says packs of wolves have eaten two of her dogs, and wild boar trample through her cornfield. Scientist are divided as to whether or not the animals are flourishing in the highly radioactive environment: "Robert J. Baker of Texas Tech University says the mice and other rodents he has studied at Chernobyl since the early 1990s have shown remarkable tolerance for elevated radiation levels. But Timothy Mousseau of the University of South Carolina, a biologist who studies barn swallows at Chernobyl, says that while wild animals have settled in the area, they have struggled to build new populations."

Returning only now?

[suv4x4]

No: it was full of wildlife for years now.

And yes, the DNA of most animals in the area is pretty effed up, but surprisingly most of them appear healthy and reproduce normally. Only goes to show how much redundancy and resilience is built into the DNA / replicating mechanisms we use.

Truth is, even with a sufficient number of a-bombs accross the world, we'll have a very hard time wijping all of humanity and wild life. Life's a tough mother f*cker, hard to destroy.

Both are probably true

[logicnazi]

The article seems to posit a false dichotomy between increased rates of cancer and deformity and a flourishing animal population. The usual mutation rate for most animals is pretty damn small. You could probably increase it 100 fold if not more and still maintain a large population of healthy breeding animals. Since animals, like humans, are naturally programed to prefer to breed with healthy members of their species there is no reason to think that the harmful mutations would 'take over' and cause the local animals to die out. Also just because more animals die of cancer doesn't mean they don't live long enough to successfully breed.

I mean it should be a lot like inbreeding. Sure inbreeding increases the number of seriously fucked up members of the population significantly so you wouldn't want to do it with humans but it can also be used to help establish certain useful traits fairly quickly. The animals living in the Chernobyl area might have more deformed babies, and no doubt if they had to fairly compete with non-irradiated members of their kind they would be at a disadvantage, but the long term effect might just be to increase the rate at which they evolve.

Of course you can't really decide this with a thought experiment but it is annoying that the article suggests increased deformity and cancer rates in individual animals is incompatible with overall health of the species/group.

Re:For anyone interested...

[Slim Backwater]

It's a good story, but only a story; she took a guided tour like anyone else entering the area: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elena_Filatova [wikipedia.org]

An interesting read.

[CrackerJackz]

One book I picked up a couple of years ago was Robert Polidori's Zones of Exclusion: Pripyat and Chernobyl, it documents though photos how nature is taking back the buildings and towns; and also includes shots from within the control room of the reactor.

http://www.theglobalist.com/photo/Chernobyl/Polido ri.shtml [theglobalist.com]

Reproduction normal?

[mdsolar]

The article reports that one third of nestlings are malformed. What we have is a fairly natural cut: If the offspring is viable, it will end up being observed as behaving normally, it if is not then it won't be observed since it will be dead from, say, having the wrong shaped beak for its niche. It will be absent from counting surveys, making them biased. Most mutations are harmful so they do not survive. But, so long as less corrupted genetic material can migrate in, you'll get a superfical appearance of normalcy.

The reason for preserving wilderness is to preserve biodiversity which is essential to maintaining a strong ecosystem. This accidental wilderness has many counts against it in that context.

Re:Same as in Bikini

[Maxo-Texas]

Most of the problems of the world can be traced to the fact that we have 6 billion humans instead of 1 billion humans. If there were only a billion of us, the world would be an abundant paradise.

Re:Anyway, they will adapt soon

[Animats]

There are already bacteria living in active zones of nuclear reactors. ... ECC in their DNA in addition to RAID1 that we currently have.

Those bacteria have quadruple-strand DNA. [wikipedia.org] and an extra error-correction loop.

Re:For anyone interested...

[AKAImBatman]

It's *very* important to remember that while her pictures are real, her story isn't. While she claims to have a nuclear scientist for a father, she actually gives a lot of erroneous information that can lead the reader to incorrect conclusions about the number of deaths, sequence of events, and actions taken during the accident.

Sooo... for once read something for its pictures, not its articles. :P

Re:Same as in Bikini

[skahshah]

Bimini is in the Bahamas, a choice destination for honeymooners, sportsmen and all sorts of tourists from Miami. The only thing that has ever been radiating there is happiness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bimini [wikipedia.org]

Bikini is an atoll in the Marshall Islands, where the US tested nuclear devices.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini_Atoll [wikipedia.org]

Re:Same as in Bikini

[Firethorn]

Another point would be that even if radiation levels were such that a lethal cancer would be 50% likely after 30 years, it wouldn't really matter to 99% of wildlife.

Mice and rodents generally have a lifespan measured in months, not years. A deer that makes it to adulthood has a maximum natural lifespan of around 15, if they make it to five they're doing good*. Large predators might live for a decade in the wild.

Most of the time, the continued existance of their races are predicated on the females having large numbers of young.

From my chernobyl research(done more than a decade ago), there has ALWAYS been a presense of plants and animals there. You have to remember, it was an actual small city, so in many cases large animal life was restricted to those that humans approved of. It takes time for concrete to crack and allow large trees such as are seen in the pictures to grow.

Then we have Baker and Mousseau argueing. I'll note that it appears that Baker appeared to concentrate on mammals(specifically rodents) while Mousseau concentrated on birds. Could it simply be that birds are more affected by radiation? That they have a tendency to wander more into the highest contamination areas? The very article notes that they've been found nesting in the sarcophagus.

While the article notes that a third of the nestlings showed abnormalities - I'd have to ask what the normal rate is. I'm aware that even normal barn swallow nestlings don't exactly have the highest survival rate.

To answer the questions, I think that the best solution would be one of radio tagging. We know average survival rates and such for outside the zone. Tag some animals, such as birds and deer, then track their survival and migration habits.

I think that we'd find that even if it's suboptimal, it's still a better area than many places activly occupied by humans.

*Does tend to live longer than bucks, as the bucks take more chances.

Interesting site.

[MaWeiTao]

There's this website [kiddofspeed.com] where this woman chronicles her motorcycle rides through the area around Chernobyl. The last time I visited the site was several years ago; it appears she's returned since then. It's very fascinating, and without a doubt, eerie. If I remember correctly she mentions having spotted wildlife on a few occassions.

Shorter Generations

[Alien54]

One must remember the shorter length of reproductive generations that many wild animals have.

For those who have yearly reproduction cycles, we are looking at 21 years, twenty generations for evolution to take place. Those with shorter cycles, such as mice and rats, etc. They probably have evolved enough protection through 50 or more generations that life for them is not so much of an issue.

Creatures with longer cycles, such as humans, would probably have a hard time adapting via evolution. The positive note hear is the relative short half life, but it is still a problem for future generations.

There is a study that indicates that low levels of radiation can have positive effects on health [sciencedaily.com]. Not that I would recommend moving to Chernobyl any time soon.

Re:Reproduction normal?

[Artifakt]

A higher mutation rate doesn't lead to an increased chance of a significant improvement in a species propagating. In sexual species in particular, a higher mutation rate will actually decrease the general evolution rates, either for a species to show a successful adaptation or for it to split off a new species. All the vast complexity of life we see around us results from the mechanisms of heredity developing newer and better ways of reducing copying errors. Even Nucleated cells themselves are an error reduction mechanism - put the genes in the middle behind extra barriers, so fewer chemicals can penetrate to affect the DNA. Sexual reproduction itself is another error reduction mechanism - combine copies from multiple sources and supress (many of) the defective ones. DNA itself won out over RNA as an encoding system because it had a much better copying error rate - and now only a few very primitive organisms remain that use RNA for encoding instead of just as a messenger molecule.
        This is part of the standard theory as taught in real genetics courses to potential professional Biologists. Just about everyone else who thinks they support evolution has been miss-taught in high school biology or 'evolutionary biology for non scientists' type classes. Nothing personal, but it sounds like you got one of those sloppy pop courses.

Re:Interesting site.

[Anonymous Coward]

Redundant. Mentioned above. Pointed out as fake and inaccurate- she took a tour and has incorrect facts. Pictures are nice, fuck the rest.

Could we have some facts PLEASE!!!

[cdrguru]

Chernobyl isn't the radioactive wasteland that people seem to have the idea it is. Mostly this is a fantasy put over by a lot of raving anti-nuclear folks and a whole lot more uninformed but well-meaning people.

No, the girl on the motorcycle is a hoax and her supposed ideas about how radioactive the ground is are utterly false.

Please take a look at http://www.chernobyllegacy.com/index.php?cat=1 [chernobyllegacy.com] and other sources before being taken in by the fearmongering.

There were a total of 46 people that died as a result of Cherynobyl. Somewhere in the low thousands have been treated for thyroid problems and some may in fact die from cancer due to exposure to the materials that were in the immediate area from the reactor fire. Nobody else is expected to die with a cause attributed to the reactor fire.

People that have taken measuring instruments into the exclusion zone have reported a slightly elevated background radiation and that is all. It is like the difference between living in Italy vs. Norway where Norway gets more cosmic radiation as compared to Italy.

If Chernobyl was anywhere near as bad as people here seem to think it was, Sweden would be a wasteland as well. It is where a lot of the fallout from the fire settled.

Old.....

[IHC Navistar]

OK, who is the idiot who thinks that this is news?!

Wildlife has been observed for a LONG TIME in and around Chernobyl, Pripyat, and immediate areas. This is by NO means new. Not only has it been observed, but is WIDELY documented and has been almost since the disaster.

In the spirit of this article, I would like to announce a discovery:

If you don't refrigerate seafood, it goes bad.