Chernobyl Exclusion Zone: While people fled the worst nuclear accident in history, animals moved in…

On April 26, 1986, an explosion occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, part of the former Soviet Union.

After the accident – ​​the worst nuclear accident in history – hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated from the surrounding area. What remained was a radioactive area the size of Yosemite National Park, the so-called Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

Houses, shops and even an amusement park are empty in the zone. No one is allowed to stay there without permission.

But the hollowed-out city is actually full of life. After people left Chernobyl, the animals moved in.

Today, YouTubers are disturbing owls nesting in abandoned doorways. Camera traps are capturing grazing bison, Eurasian lynx prowling, and young moose playing in puddles.

Photographers capture the moments of collision: foxes posing on empty sidewalks, catfish swimming in the cooling ponds, and whole herds of Przewalski's horses running through the clearings and past the trident “danger” signs.

Nobody expected this. Most people assumed that the radioactive area would be unsuitable for animals for hundreds of years. But researchers who counted the mammals in the exclusion zone – and in the Polesie State Radioecological Reserve, just across the border in Belarus – found that the number of animals living there is just as high as in other protected areas.

Foxes pose on empty sidewalks, catfish swim in the cooling ponds, and whole herds of Przewalski’s horses run through the clearings and past the trident “danger” signs.

More than 200 species of birds, as well as mammals, amphibians, fish and insects have been sighted in the zone. All species have healthy and stable population numbers.

Of course, radiation exposure is not good for wildlife. Immediately after the disaster, all pine trees within a 4-mile radius of the power plant turned brown, died, and had to be bulldozed; invertebrates and small mammals also died.

In the years that followed, scientists discovered significant numbers of asymmetrical insects, albino barn swallows, and cataract-stricken voles in the area, features they linked to the disaster.

But ecologists are beginning to suspect that these negative effects are offset – and perhaps even outweighed – by the great relief of not having people around.

Scientists have discovered a significant number of asymmetrical insects, albino barn swallows and cataract voles in the zone.

In fact, some species may even be adapting to the situation: studies have shown that frogs inside the zone are darker than those outside, which may help them withstand some of the effects of radiation. For some at least, a tragic place is now a space of opportunity.

Which animals live in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone?

• Eurasian lynx (Lynx Lynx)
• Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos)
• Gray Wolf (Dog lupus)
• Wild boar (Her scrofa)
• Brown bear (Ursus arctos)
• European bison (Bison bonasus)
• Przewalski horse (Equus ferus przewalskii)
• Barn Swallow (Hirundo sylvatica)
• Eastern tree frog (Hyla orientalis)

This article is an excerpt from Atlas Obscura: Wild Life: An Explorer's Guide to the Living Wonders of the World by Joshua Foer & Cara Giaimo. Workman Publishing, 2024.

Main image: One of the main attractions for children in the Pripyat theme park – a now abandoned city near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant

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