Brown bears, golden eagles, wolves, lynx and bison are just a few of the species that now live in the partially abandoned city of Chernobyl in Ukraine. Some animals are flourishing, others have been forced to evolve…
On April 26, 1986, there was an explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, in what was then the Soviet Union.
After the accident – the worst nuclear incident in history – hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated from the surrounding area, leaving a Yosemite-sized radioactive expanse known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
Houses, businesses and even an amusement park stand empty in the zone. No one is allowed there without a permit.
But what should be a hollowed-out city is actually full of life. After the people moved out of Chernobyl, the animals moved in.
Now, visiting YouTubers interrupt owls roosting in abandoned doorways. Camera traps catch bison grazing, Eurasian lynxes sneaking around, and young moose playing in puddles.
Photographers capture moments of collision: foxes posing on empty pavement, catfish swimming in the cooling ponds, and whole herds of Przewalski’s horses running through the clearings and past the three-pronged “Hazard” signs.
No one expected this. Most assumed the radiation-suffused area would be unfit for animal life for hundreds of years. Instead, researchers counting mammals in the exclusion zone – as well as in the Polesie State Radioecological Reserve, just across the border in Belarus – have found that there are as many animals living there as there are in preserves elsewhere.
Foxes pose on empty pavements, catfish swim in the cooling ponds, and whole herds of Przewalski’s horses run through the clearings and past the three-pronged “Hazard” signs.
More than 200 bird species have been sighted in the zone, along with mammals, amphibians, fish and insects. All maintain healthy and stable population numbers.
Of course, radiation exposure isn’t good for wildlife. Directly after the disaster, all the pine trees within 4 miles (6.4 km) of the plant browned, died and had to be bulldozed under; invertebrates and small mammals perished as well.
In the years since, scientists have found a significant number of asymmetrical insects, albino barn swallows and cataracted voles in the zone, traits they have connected to the accident.
But ecologists are beginning to suspect that any such negative effects are offset – and perhaps even out-weighed – by the sheer relief of not having humans around.
Scientists have found a significant number of asymmetrical insects, albino barn swallows and cataracted voles in the zone.
Indeed, some species may even be adapting to the situation: Studies have shown that frogs inside the zone are darker than those outside of it, which may help them resist some of the effects of radiation. For some, at least, a tragic site is now a space of possibility.
Which animals live in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone?
- Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx)
- Golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos)
- Gray wolf (Canis lupus)
- Wild boar (Sus scrofa)
- Brown bear (Ursus arctos)
- European bison (Bison bonasus)
- Przewalski’s horse (Equus ferus przewalskii)
- Barn swallow (Hirundo rustica)
- Eastern tree frog (Hyla orientalis)
This article is excerpted from Atlas Obscura: Wild Life: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Living Wonders by Joshua Foer & Cara Giaimo. Workman Publishing, 2024.
Main image: One of the main children’s attractions in the theme park of Pripyat – a now-abandoned city near Chernobyl nuclear power plant
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