Wildlife defies Chernobyl radiation:
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.