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Chernobyl's wild revival: rare horses thrive in radioactive exclusion zone
Nearly four decades after the nuclear disaster, wildlife — including rare Przewalski’s horses — thrives in the Chernobyl exclusion zone even as war and radiation continue to pose risksAP|On land too contaminated for human life, one of the world’s rarest horse species is roaming free.In the Chernobyl exclusion zone, Przewalski’s horses — stocky, sand-colored animals with a compact, almost toy-like build — graze across a radioactive landscape larger than Luxembourg.5 View gallery The exclusion zone near Chernobyl (Photo: Reuters)5 View gallery Chernobyl (Photo: AP\ Evgeniy Maloletka)An explosion at the nuclear power plant on April 26, 1986, sent radiation across Europe and forced the evacuation of entire towns in what is widely considered the worst nuclear disaster in history. Tens of thousands of people were displaced.Nearly four decades later, Chernobyl — transliterated as “Chornobyl” in Ukrainian — remains largely uninhabitable for humans. Wildlife, however, has returned in force.Wolves roam the vast no-man’s-land spanning parts of Ukraine and Belarus. Brown bears have reappeared after more than a century. Populations of lynx, moose and red deer have rebounded, along with packs of free-roaming dogs. Przewalski’s horses, a species native to Mongolia that once faced extinction in the wild, were introduced to the zone in 1998 as part of a conservation experiment.5 View gallery A dog near an abandoned city, close to Chornobyl (Photo: Shutterstock)Known in Mongolia as “takhi,” meaning “spirit,” the horses are genetically distinct from domesticated breeds, with 33 chromosome pairs compared with 32 in domestic horses. The species is named after the Russian explorer Nikolai Przhevalsky, who first documented it.“The fact that Ukraine now has a free-ranging population is something of a small miracle,” said Denys Vyshnevskyi, the exclusion zone’s chief nature scientist.With human activity absent, parts of the zone now resemble European landscapes from centuries past, he said. “Nature recovers relatively quickly and effectively.”5 View gallery Przewalski horses (Photo: AP\ Evgeniy Maloletka)The transformation is visible throughout the area. Trees grow through abandoned buildings, roads are overtaken by forest and weathered Soviet-era signs stand beside leaning crosses in overgrown cemeteries.Camera traps show the horses adapting in unexpected ways. They shelter in crumbling barns and deserted homes to escape harsh weather and insects, sometimes bedding down inside.Th...
How wildlife & plants have returned to the area around Chornobyl - RTÉ
Analysis: Research shows how wildlife and soil ecosystems respond to environmental disasters, rewilding and the absence of human activity By Alexandre de Menezes, University of Galway 40 years ago this month, the explosion of Reactor 4 of the Chornobyl power plant lead to the largest accidental release of radioactivity to the environment to date, with an area nearly two times the size of the island of Ireland being contaminated with high radiation levels. The radiation contamination led to the abandonment of an area of 4,800 km2 and to the creation of the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ), which is the world's most anthropogenically contaminated terrestrial environment. But the isolation of the CEZ from human activity means it has become an exceptional example of rewilding, with animals such as bears and wolves making a comeback in the area. It offers an unparalleled opportunity to observe and study how ecosystems and animals cope and even thrive in high-radiation environments. We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences From RTÉ Archives, Carole Coleman visits the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone for RTÉ News in 2000 The 40 years since the explosion have seen a large body of research being generated from the CEZ. While some research shows that radiation had a significant impact on local plants and animals, other research points to nature in the exclusion zone being largely resilient to the still very high radiation levels in some CEZ areas. For example, recent studies using motion-activated cameras found that mammal species detection was not related to radiation levels. In another study, tree frogs in the exclusion zone were found to have darker dorsal skin compared to frogs from outside the CEZ, which may be an adaptation to the high radiation levels, since melanin is believed to counteract the oxidative stress caused by ionising radiation. But what about the invisible members of the ecosystem? Since 1986, the soil microbes in the CEZ have been exposed to high levels of radiation, creating a unique opportunity to investigate how natural microbial communities adapt to radiation. A radiation sign indicates the territory of the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine. Photo: Kyrylo Chubotin/Ukrinform/NurPhoto via Getty Images This is where my research came in. I am i...
Nature's resilience thrives in Chornobyl's radioactive landscape
On contaminated land that is too dangerous for human life, the world's wildest horses roam free.
Four decades on, Chernobyl remains too dangerous for humans ...
The Wolves of Chernobyl was a fabulous documentary. It stuck with me. The size of the animals and they live without human interruption. Really...
