Radioactive wolves

[Catherine]

I just watched a PBS documentary about the wolves and other wildlife of the Chernobyl area, 25 years after the disaster. It seems that the enormous exclusion area (1,100 sq miles) has become a wildlife sanctuary. The whole area is returning to its wild state. With the help of beaver activity, the drained marshes have become marshes. Everywhere is flourishing.

http://video.pbs.org/search/?q=radioacti...pe=episode
This link doesn't work, there is a working link in my next post.
I have posted the link to the online site. It is worth watching.

Nature seems to be able to overcome anything we can do to it. I suspect that there have been consequences from the radiation, but the strong animals and plants have survived. We might want to think about that. Mother Nature can do very well without us, in fact better.

[Tobi]

I am disappointed because I couldn't watch the video! It wasn't watchable in my country because of 'right restrictions."
So much for the World Wide Web -hey?
Someone should find a way to truly globalise the WWW!!

I would have loved to watch this...but did once see something about the wilderness which has grown up there, how beautifully surreal it is, and how animals seem to be finding their way through (at what cost? But they are managing so far.)

Anyway -it is a strange and rather beautiful thing, how Nature has moved in and flourishes in the radioactive zone near Chernobyl. It brings me to tears -literally.

[Catherine]

It's too bad that you can't see the video. I actually had it out from my library as a DVD. I will look and see if I can find another way to post it.



I think this is the right video
There are 1,100 acres in the exclusion zone. All the people are gone and nature has been left to its own devices. It has been 28 years so full sized trees have grown. Growth of plants and animals has been intense. I believe there is increased mutation levels so there is probably a higher death rate, but life has flourished.
Of course the animals that survive would be the ones that can handle higher radiation levels. So there is a bit of a natural selection for radiation tolerance.

The amazing thing is how much nature is reclaiming the abandoned villages and cities. It is all returning to a natural state. Even with the radiation, nature is doing better without our presence.

[LPC]

The video which you added in your second post works, Catherine. It is interesting and, although a little chilling at times, does indeed show how nature doesn't need humans to get along fine, even in difficult circumstances.

[Catherine]

I find it interesting that life flourishes in a radioactive area. Even though there are some problems, clearly the animal populations are healthy. The catfish that live in site of the reactor are amazing. They shouldn't be alive, at not least according to what we think should be happening. If you do a follow up on the human population, who were actually evacuated, they have not done well. It is tragic for the children born just outside the exclusion zone. They have horrific problems. Their deformities seem so much worse than the mutations observed in the animals. Of course damaged animals do not survive and after all this time, the animals that are left are stronger. The must be more radiation tolerant.

That leads me to wonder about the animals of Fukushima.
I know a lot of the farm animals died because they were caged without food or water. I don't know how the wild animals will do.

[Tobi]

Catherine -thank you so much for posting that video! It works well, and I just watched it!
The wildlife in that area is thriving. I am wondering why life is doing so very well there, while at Fukushima, there were terrible mutations.

[Catherine]

Maybe it is too soon for Fukushima. Right now there are mutations and things look bad for the area.

I think initially things looked bad for Chernobyl. The trees in the area all died and there were mutations. It has been more than 25 years so nature has sorted itself out. There would still be a higher mutation rate, but the natural order is reasserting itself. The ecological balance is returning. First the beavers went wild with dams and flooded everything they could. Now the wolves are getting some of the beavers so some of the land dries out. That is a normal cycle.

I wonder what Fukushima will look like is 5 or 10 years.

[Tobi]

It does go to show that even if humans manage to destroy everything, they really won't have destroyed much at all, except the possibility of human life and human concerns. But it also shows that it could be even possible for humans to survive such devastation, and continue on, as those animals are doing in Chernobyl.
I like to imagine that any survivors and their descendants would start to live more natural lives, in Nature's balance, using wilderness survival skills, and grow a new race living their lives in harmony with the surroundings....but I doubt that would happen. Eventually, humans would probably work themselves back to 'square one' again, and start to re-invent automobiles/fridge freezers/electric lighting/oil wars/and eventually nuclear power stations....

[Catherine]

Quote:It does go to show that even if humans manage to destroy everything, they really won't have destroyed much at all, except the possibility of human life and human concerns. But it also shows that it could be even possible for humans to survive such devastation, and continue on, as those animals are doing in Chernobyl.
I like to imagine that any survivors and their descendants would start to live more natural lives, in Nature's balance, using wilderness survival skills, and grow a new race living their lives in harmony with the surroundings....but I doubt that would happen. Eventually, humans would probably work themselves back to 'square one' again, and start to re-invent automobiles/fridge freezers/electric lighting/oil wars/and eventually nuclear power stations....

The animals who stayed and survived or moved into the area later, did have problems with mutations. I think they probably still do. Animals are not bothered by such things. If the mutation is severe the offspring do not survive. If they survive and are different looking they can still live normal lives. I have had handicapped pets for years and they accept the way they are and are not bothered by their differences.
Humans only accept a vary narrow range of variation as normal. A baby with six fingers, but normal in every other way is still a great distress to the parents. Have you ever read John Wyndham's book, The Chrysalides (titled Rebirth in some countries)? It is about a post nuclear war world and mutations are not tolerated. We don't act that strongly, but we are still distressed when it happens. Of course some of the Chernobyl mutations are pretty horrible. Humans are the only creature to use radioactive materials, but we seem to have no tolerance for their effects.

[Cibach]

It just goes to show how wild animals do far better without us!!

At the time of the Chernobyl incident I was working in the nuclear medicine dept. of the local hospital. Our dept. was responsible (among a lot of other things) for radiation monitoring.
We had quite a few enquiries from the general public as the radiation cloud passed over Wales on a very rainy day and indeed quite a bit of contamination fell on us.
On the whole most people who asked to be monitored had very little above general background and indeed the "Glow in the dark" faces of their watches gave off more radiation.

But some of the hill farmers were not so lucky. The radiation that came down with the rain contaminated quite a bit of pasture and the sheep that ate the grass then had contaminated meat which couldn't be allowed into the food chain.
As a dept. we measured samples of the meat for years.
I left the dept. in 1996 to have my daughter and measurements were still being made then some 13 years after the incident with the meat still too contaminated to be edible.
The radioactive material has a very long half life and was coming up in the grass, being eaten by the sheep, and a portion of it was being deposited back onto the grass by the sheep's droppings etc.

I didn't keep up with the studies but it wouldn't surprise me if they are still ongoing.
The farmers were suitably compensated for their sheep and the fact that they could not use the pasture for sheep for the food industry. The wool was ok to use which is why there were sheep to measure so long after the incident.

What a mess we make of our world.