Wildlife defies Chernobyl radiation.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Radioactive rodents!

Wildlife defies Chernobyl radiation
By Stephen Mulvey
BBC News

It contains some of the most contaminated land in the world, yet it has become a haven for wildlife - a nature reserve in all but name.

The exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power station is teeming with life.

As humans were evacuated from the area 20 years ago, animals moved in. Existing populations multiplied and species not seen for decades, such as the lynx and eagle owl, began to return.

There are even tantalising footprints of a bear, an animal that has not trodden this part of Ukraine for centuries.

"Animals don't seem to sense radiation and will occupy an area regardless of the radiation condition," says radioecologist Sergey Gaschak.

"A lot of birds are nesting inside the sarcophagus," he adds, referring to the steel and concrete shield erected over the reactor that exploded in 1986.

"Starlings, pigeons, swallows, redstart - I saw nests, and I found eggs."

There may be plutonium in the zone, but there is no herbicide or pesticide, no industry, no traffic, and marshlands are no longer being drained.

There is nothing to disturb the wild boar - said to have multiplied eightfold between 1986 and 1988 - except its similarly resurgent predator, the wolf.

Inedible

The picture was not quite so rosy in the first weeks and months after of the disaster, when radiation levels were much, much higher.

Four square kilometres of pine forest in the immediate vicinity of the reactor went ginger brown and died, earning the name of the Red Forest.

Some animals in the worst-hit areas also died or stopped reproducing. Mice embryos simply dissolved, while horses left on an island 6km from the power plant died when their thyroid glands disintegrated.

Cattle on the same island were stunted due to thyroid damage, but the next generation were found to be surprisingly normal.

Now it's typical for animals to be radioactive - too radioactive for humans to eat safely - but otherwise healthy.

Adaptation

There is a distinction to be made between animals which stay in one place, such as mice, and larger animals - elks, say - which move in and out of contaminated land as they range over large areas.

The animals that wander widely end up with a lower dose of radiation than animals stuck in a radiation hotspot.

The elk population has boomed in the absence of human interference
But there are signs that these unfortunate creatures can adapt to their circumstances.

Sergey Gaschak has experimented on mice in the Red Forest, parts of which are slowly growing back, albeit with stunted and misshapen trees.

"We marked animals then recaptured them again much later," he says.

"And we found they lived as long as animals in relatively clean areas."

The next step was to take these other mice and put them in an enclosure in the Red Forest.

"They felt not very well," Sergey says.

"The distinction between the local and newcomer animals was very evident."

Mutation

In all his research, Sergey has only found one mouse with cancer-like symptoms.


ZONE DWELLERS
Reappeared: Lynx, eagle owl, great white egret, nesting swans, and possibly a bear
Introduced: European bison, Przewalski's horse
Booming mammals: Badger, beaver, boar, deer, elk, fox, hare, otter, raccoon dog, wolf
Booming birds: Aquatic warbler, azure tit, black grouse, black stork, crane, white-tailed eagle

He has found ample evidence of DNA mutations, but nothing that affected the animals' physiology or reproductive ability.

"Nothing with two heads," he says.

Mary Mycio, author of Wormwood Forest, a natural history of the Chernobyl zone, points out that a mutant animal in the wild will usually die and be eaten before scientists can observe it.

And in general, she notes, scientists study populations as a whole, and are not that interested in what happens to particular individuals.

Nuclear guardian

But she too argues that the benefits to wildlife of removing people from the zone, have far outweighed any harm from radiation.

Mouse DNA has changed, but with few visible effects
In her book she quotes the British scientist and environmentalist James Lovelock, who wrote approvingly in the Daily Telegraph in 2001 of the "unscheduled appearance" of wildlife at Chernobyl.

He went on: "I have wondered if the small volumes of nuclear waste from power production should be stored in tropical forests and other habitats in need of a reliable guardian against their destruction by greedy developers".

A large part of the Chernobyl zone within Belarus has already officially been turned into a nature reserve.

Sergey Gaschak wants Ukraine to follow suit and to turn its 2,500 sq km of evacuated land into a reserve or national park.

Unlike the Ukrainian Green Party, he is not bothered if the government goes ahead with plans to build a deep deposit in the zone for nuclear waste from all over the country.

He says the eagle owl will not care two hoots.

Now this is a very interesting aftereffect of the Chernobyl accident, and shows the durability and adaptiveness of animal species, which seem to be thriving in this area where humans don't dare resettle.

[Shroom Man 777]

Feh, cheap capitalist Jellystone Park! In Soviet Russia, when we make parks, we intentionally meltdown nuclear powerplant/volcano and release poison gas all over world, kill thousands of people and make land uninhabitable for decades. Then animals come in and mutate, years later, man from Belarus get chased by two-headed bear.[/russian accent]

[Pick]

I'm glad that the animals can use this land . I think it's a great story.

[Shroom Man 777]

I think it is too. I mean, shit, it's Chernobyl, and there are flowers and songbirds and frogs with funny hats and cows with bells? Holy crap! I mean, there's this videogame with zombies and bloody giant headcrabs spawning out of Chernobyl. But instead, we get rainbows and doves!

[Ryushikaze]

This is news? I recall this same story several years ago, and being reported in a "for the past several years" sort of manner as well.

[Admiral Valdemar]

It's fairly common knowledge now that wildlife is rampant in one of the most radioactive areas on the planet. They have wolf packs still hunting properly there along with the pet dogs left behind and many species of bird and plant have adapted to deal with any radiological contamination. This sort of thing you expect in certain bacteria or insects like 'roaches, which simply laugh at radiation doses orders of magnitude more than can kill a human. But this sort of stuff is showing just how hardy the biosphere can be.

[Xon]

The radiation around Chernobyl isnt high enough to kill in a single generation, or even 2 before the animal in question breeds.

Thats all the is required for them to develop a tollerance for what really is slightly higher than normal background radiation.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Given the mutations seen in humans around that area, it's a wee bit more than just a little over background radiation. Chernobyl pretty much pissed on the globe and caused cancer rates in my own county to increase and livestock to produce toxic milk or stillborn offspring. That life there has prospered despite this is quite a thing, even if we're not talking sitting inside the exposed core of the plant.

It could have been worse anyway. They could have failed in venting the water containment reservoir and let the core China Syndrome its way in. Can anyone say nuclear detonation grade steam explosion?

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

The radiation around Chernobyl isnt high enough to kill in a single generation, or even 2 before the animal in question breeds.

Thats all the is required for them to develop a tollerance for what really is slightly higher than normal background radiation.

It's not merely "slightly higher than normal." The article states that mice living near Chernobyl fare well in spite of the significant changes in their DNA. Mice introduced from outside the contaminated areas tended to get sick. Also, the article states that animals living near Chernobyl are radioactive enough to be entirely unfit for human consumption.

[Jalinth]

I think it is too. I mean, shit, it's Chernobyl, and there are flowers and songbirds and frogs with funny hats and cows with bells? Holy crap! I mean, there's this videogame with zombies and bloody giant headcrabs spawning out of Chernobyl. But instead, we get rainbows and doves!

Sounds like a report I've read about the DMZ in Korea. The area is basically a sanctuary for multiple types of animals because any human activity is zero (or becomes quickly zero courtesy of snipers, mines and various other nasties in the DMZ)

[Junghalli]

The explanation is probably fairly simple. Animals don't know enough to know it's bad for them to live in a radioactive area. I'm sure mutations and birth defects probably shoot up drastically, but the population can absorb it and natural selection quickly takes care of anything that can't live long enough to reproduce. Humans could probably move back, but we know better.

[Surlethe]

If a human population had stayed and been somewhat isolated, what would have happened to it? Would it have died out, or managed to adapt to the radiation?

[Admiral Valdemar]

If a human population had stayed and been somewhat isolated, what would have happened to it? Would it have died out, or managed to adapt to the radiation?

Depending on the proximity to the core, you could get everything from high cancer rates (as in really high lymphoma or pulmonary cancers etc.) to mutations that cause abortions in early foetal development. I'd expect point mutations and frameshift mutations etc. to occur more often, resulting in many more inheritable genetic maladies. It's possible we could survive there, but no one would really enjoy it. Our reproductive cycles are somewhat longer than most other animals too, so it'd take longer to get rid of any generations that suffered major problems.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

If a human population had stayed and been somewhat isolated, what would have happened to it? Would it have died out, or managed to adapt to the radiation?

Humans seem to have a bit of a glass jaw when it comes to radiation. The Chernobyl accident spread a huge cloud of radiation which produced a measurable increase in the incidence of cancer in the affected population even years later. It doesn't help that humans are, compared to other animals, appallingly bad at reproducing.

[Xon]

If a human population had stayed and been somewhat isolated, what would have happened to it? Would it have died out, or managed to adapt to the radiation?

Humanity has a stageringly long reproduction cycle, making it the wrong type of species to adapt to those types of conditions. Mean-25 year for a generation compared to about 2 years max for most animals.

The longer reproduction cycle means the individual animal is subject to more radiation before breeding, which means more mutations and a greater chance of more harmful mutations.

[Rocker5150]

Here is a site about a girl who rides her motorcycle in and around Chernobyl. It is very interesting and also kind of eerie. There are pictures of wild horses, abandoned objects left in homes, as well as geiger counter readings from various places. Check it out!

http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddo ... pter1.html


-Kevin

[weemadando]

Sarah and I are looking at visiting Eastern Europe in a year or so. I really want to visit Chernobyl and walk around the abandoned cities..

[K. A. Pital]

Going to the Ultimate Post-Apoc place, eh? Don't forget your suit and dosimeter, though there will be just one abandoned city - Pripyat... And don't miss the Graveyard - that must be one of the most amazingly atmospheric places on Earth. The feeling of Apocalypse and all the blah... well, you get the idea.

[Admiral Valdemar]

You'll have to forego the usual anti-mosquito repellant and buy a shotgun to deal with the mutant ones. Don't bother packing aspirin or the like, take iodine tablets and make sure your HEV suit is properly charged.

I'm sure the creatures I've seen in that Chernobyl FPS won't be quite so vicious.

[drachefly]

Note: this is one of the few cases where Iodine does actually help. Strontium-90 is one of the main radioactive elements in the area. Won't help with the Cesium-137, though.

[Steven Snyder]

Here is a site about a girl who rides her motorcycle in and around Chernobyl

Wow, I loved that site. I never imagined it would be as big as it was and look so creepy.

[Patrick Degan]

As an aside, this development is also yet another nail in the coffin for Creationism and its bastard stepchild, Intelligent Design —since adaptive evolution is clearly observable in what's going on in and around the Chernobyl exclusion zone.

[Alan Bolte]

Step 1: Dribe a million people to move into the Chernobyl area.
Step 2: Continue bribing them and their offspring to stay for several hundred years.
Step 3: Observe speciation within humankind.
Step 4: Profit?

[nickolay1]

Note: this is one of the few cases where Iodine does actually help. Strontium-90 is one of the main radioactive elements in the area. Won't help with the Cesium-137, though.

Actually, iodine only helps immediately after such an accident. I-131 has a half-life of only eight days, so saturating the thyroid with stable iodine will prevent the uptake of I-131 during the relatively short period of time in which its presence is significant.

[K. A. Pital]

And remember, the older you are, the less are the effects of radiation. If you're pretty young, Chernobyl is not a good place to visit.