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."

Same as in Bikini

[mangu]

The Bikini atoll was also evacuated of people and set off-limits to fishing after the nuclear weapons tests the US did there in the 1950s. Today Bikini has the most abundant wildlife in the Pacific.

Lesser of the two evils

[Slaimus]

Given the choice of sharing the environment with humans or radiation, animals would much rather have the radiation.

Animals are no stranger to radiation

[TheLazySci-FiAuthor]

Correct me where I'm wrong here, but I believe animal bodies have developed some pretty good ways of dealing with radiation over the eons. I know my skin does a fair job of managing UV radiation - though I will probably be darkening it when the therapy is available.

I wonder, has the antioxidant level in the plant life been measured? How much research is there in regards to long-term, lower-dose radiation exposure not just to individual organisms, but to ecosystems. Ecosystems are like massive organisms themselves.

I would think that selective pressures are probably biting at the bit to get working on increasing tolerance in populations inhabiting these no-man-lands.

For anyone interested...

[Known Nutter]

...or looking for an intriguing read on a Friday morning, this young lady Elena describes her motorcycle ride to and through the so called Chernobyl "dead zone" [kiddofspeed.com], with pictures. Interesting read.

Re:Same as in Bikini

[jae471]

As is the Korean DMZ from what I've read.

Hunting at Chernobyl

[mcsqueak]

There is a fun little travel DVD called the "Vice guide to travel", put out by the folks who do Vice magazine. One of their little bits is that they go to Chernobyl and try to hunt radioactive boars with large guns. (another bit on the DVD was visiting the world's largest illegal arms market in Pakistan). It's worth renting... very fun little movie.

Darwin in Action

[queenb**ch]

They will either evolve to accomodate their new conditions or they will die. It will be interesting to see if we get new species evolving more rapidly there or if the existing populations just wither and die off. Frankly, I would suspect that most of the animals there have been driven out of habitat elsewhere. That's how Mother Nature works. The looser is always the one that migrates. I'm not complaining much because that's what drove apes out of the forest and on to the plains to become the first hominids.

2 cents,

QueenB.

Insect

[aepervius]

Aren't insect more resilient to radiation in general ? Thus the joke about the cockroach being the next master of earth in case the A,H and other 1 letter bomb start to fall ?

Screw the affects on animals

[hellfire]

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

Call me selfish or humanocentric, but I'd be very interested in a study on this person! That would be incredibly interesting. It's amazing to me that a person has subsisted in this area for all this time.

Re:For anyone interested...

[jshriverWVU]

This was posted on /. a year or two ago. Wasn't it found out that the story was faked?

Re:For anyone interested...

[Blakey Rat]

It was "faked" in that she lied about taking a motorcycle through the zone by herself. She just took the normal tour and had photos taken of her holding a helmet. Why? Who knows... I guess touring the zone isn't exciting enough by itself, you have to be on a motorcycle too.

Detroit

[Anonymous Coward]

A similar thing is happening in Detroit, where re-forestation is taking over the inner city. Check out www.detroitblog.org for pictures of meadows in the middle of the city, and trees growing out of the roofs of abandoned skyscrapers http://www.detroitblog.org/index.php?paged=13 [detroitblog.org]

You can also see this in satellite pictures. Look closely around Tiger Stadium and you'll see block after block of green fields with only a few scattered houses.

Nature can adapt to sub divsions as well

[Anonymous Coward]

The long established sub division I live in PA is starting to see some flirtations with top predators like bears. I hear some mountain lions may also be on the prowl.

Our Delaware River that been an industrial wasteland is starting to see some interesting fish migrations again.

Eliminating the poisons and raw sewage of our industrial past is clearly part of the solution, but there is more suburban sprawl here than ever and nature seems to adapt just fine.

When subdivisions have been around as long as rain forests, I suspect we might see new levels of adaptation and speciation. Nature can adapt.

Not only old...

[Klaus_1250]

but also misleading.

Scientist are divided as to whether or not the animals are flourishing in the highly radioactive environment

It is not highly radio-active, it has elevated levels of radiation. In fact, it might actually have a more healthy amount of radiation than non-contaminated areas, as there appears to be a positive link between health and slightly elevated levels of radiation. See http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article68 5386.ece [timesonline.co.uk] and http://www.lewrockwell.com/miller/miller12.html [lewrockwell.com] for instance.

Why surpise?

[poszi]

It's been 21 years since the catastrophe. All the short-lived isotopes are long gone. Heck, most of the isotopes were gone after a few weeks. The radiation levels are currently quite low, up to 7 mSv/year [bbc.co.uk] in the less contaminated areas of the zone. It's only 2-3 times of the natural background in the USA. There are places, where natural radiation is much higher than that. I'm surprised anybody can be surprised the wildlife is soaring. Human (or rather human activity) is the biggest wildlife killer. Radiation in low levels is completely unimportant.