Make what you will of this very interesting AP article after weighing all sides. It appears that two decades after the frightening accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the area around it has become a haven for wildlife! Moose, lynx, fox, birds and small mammals have gathered in droves in a place which was expected to become an ecological dead zone and which now is covered in dense forest.
PARISHEV, Ukraine - Two decades after an explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant sent clouds of radioactive particles drifting over the fields near her home, Maria Urupa says the wilderness is encroaching. Packs of wolves have eaten two of her dogs, the 73-year-old says, and wild boar trample through her cornfield. And she says fox, rabbits and snakes infest the meadows near her tumbledown cottage.
"I've seen a lot of wild animals here," says Urupa, one of about 300 mostly elderly residents who insist on living in Chernobyl's contaminated evacuation zone.
The return of wildlife to the region near the world's worst nuclear power accident is an apparent paradox that biologists are trying to measure and understand. Many assumed the 1986 meltdown of one reactor, and the release of hundreds of tons of radioactive material, would turn much of the 1,100-square-mile evacuated area around Chernobyl into a nuclear dead zone.
It certainly doesn't look like one today.
Dense forests have reclaimed farm fields and apartment house courtyards. Residents, visitors and some biologists report seeing wildlife _ including moose and lynx _ rarely sighted in the rest of Europe. Birds even nest inside the cracked concrete sarcophagus shielding the shattered remains of the reactor.
This unexpected burst of life in a poisoned region has given rise to conflicting claims by biologists, two of them Americans.
Biologist Robert J. Baker of Texas Tech University was one of the first Western scientists to report that Chernobyl had become a wildlife haven. He 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. Far from thriving, he says, a high proportion of the birds he and his colleagues have examined suffer from radiation-induced sickness and genetic damage. Survival rates are dramatically lower for those living in the most contaminated areas.
In explaining their starkly differing views, Baker and Mousseau criticize each other's studies as poorly designed.
I forwarded the article to two science bloggers (Razib and Coturnix).
According to Razib, "1) some organisms (i'm thinking types of insects) are known to do relatively well in high radiation (for humans). 2) Other organisms (e.g., mice) have large reproductive populations so
that a large enough reservoir of non-mutant animals [among the progeny] can serve as a viable population."
Thinking along similar lines, Coturnix suspects that the conflict between the observations by the two American biologists arises from the fact that one (Robert Baker) studies small mammals and the other (Timothy Mousseau) birds; the former may adapt to low levels of radiation better than the latter.
As for the larger mammals (the moose, lynx, fox, wolf etc.), my guess is that they are gathering in large numbers near Chernobyl because they have found a quiet territory untrammeled by human activity since most able bodied humans have fled the area. (Are humans more dangerous to wildlife than low level nuclear radiation? Not a totally outrageous thought.) Therefore the increase in their population is for the time being, due largely to in-migration. Whether they and their offspring thrive in this "hot / warm" zone will be known in time. The grisly accident at Chernobyl may have unwittingly provided us with a real life laboratory. Scientists can study the effects of varied levels of nuclear radiation on the environment - flora as well as fauna. The findings may help in assessing the risk of developing nuclear power plants for our energy needs as an alternative to fossil fuels, an idea to which the American public is currently opposed due largely to the memory of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.
Meanwhile, what does Maria Urupa, the intrepid senior citizen residing in the area think of the dangers of radiation that she is exposed to? Not much, it appears.
While the experts debate, Maria Urupa, harvests tomatoes from her garden, buys fish from the nearby Pripyat River and brews moonshine vodka. Eating locally produced food is risky, health experts agree, because plants and animals can concentrate radioactive materials as they cycle through the food chain. Doe she fear the effects of her exposure to radiation?
"Radiation? No!" she said. "What humans do? Yes."
For those who are interested in learning more about the effects of radiation on morbidity / mortality, please see this paper by a Japanese scientist entitled "Comparison of the Acute Effects of the Hiroshima Nagasaki Atomic Bombings and of the Chernobyl Reactor Accident".
The University of South Carolina is a sponsor of research on the environmenal impact of the Chernobyl accident. A summary of their research initiative here.
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