The nuclear catastrophe that occurred in 1986 at Chernobyl left a radiation trail and a ghost town in its wake. Generations since the incident have suffered the consequences of excess radiation. However, Today, Chernobyl oozes life.
How can this happen? Furthermore, thirty years after the catastrophe occurred, no one has lived there to tell of this. Do you want to know more about it?
After the Chernobyl disaster
Following the nuclear accident, hundreds of thousands of people had to be evacuated from the area and transferred to other safer and more habitable conditions. The place has been completely uninhabited during these thirty years, as the radiation levels they are still too high so that a human being can live there.
However, a few months ago it was discovered that the Chernobyl zone in which the disaster occurred it is full of life. Thanks to a camera trap that is located in the forests that surround the city, it has been possible to obtain images of animals and plants that have repopulated the desolate desert that the accident left behind.
A few years ago a preliminary study was carried out on possible populations of animals and plants thanks to the discovery of footprints that could indicate the presence of flora and fauna present. However, you couldn't be sure with complete confidence and you couldn't go there to find out, as you might expect. But this new study does confirm the presence of animals and plants in the area of the nuclear disaster.
The fact that there are animals is a better sign of the recovery of the area, since the plants have other mechanisms of survival in the face of radiation. That is why the fact that there are animals in Chernobyl means that their recovery is going from strength to strength.
Chernobyl alive
Scientists have placed a series of surveillance cameras that are activated by movement. These chambers have a fatty acid odor to better attract animals. In this way, when the animals approach the camera attracted by the smell, they will be able to capture photos and corroborate the theory that Chernobyl is alive again.
To be able to affirm the moderate recovery from Chernobyl, scientists have relied on the photograph of the large predators that are found higher in the food chain and that are good indicators for the health and general good condition of an ecosystem. In addition, the photographs taken of these animals confirm that they do not have any problems derived from radiation. That is to say, it seems that their physiology has not been altered nor is there any type of mutation, they are totally healthy.
The species that have been seen the most have been wolves, wild boars, foxes and raccoons. Researchers estimate that the presence of these predators is due to the fact that they are continuously moving in search of drinking water and new sources of food. If there are predators in an ecosystem that are found in the highest part of the food chain, it means that there are species of animals and plants in the lower links of the chain that are capable of sustaining them. Therefore, it can be stated that the ecosystem is in good health in general, since there is enough biodiversity to maintain the entire food chain.
There is also other evidence pointing to the Chernobyl recovery. It is that carnivores, being at the highest levels of the food chain, are capable of bioaccumulating more pollutants entrained and absorbed by the other lower links. Although victory cannot be claimed either, since there are hardly any studies on the effects of pollution on populations of species at higher trophic levels.
This can have repercussions on the predators found by the photographs taken with the camera trap. That is, a deer may have certain radiation in its body that it has absorbed from the plants it eats. But a wolf can store more total radiation because it eats deer that previously had accumulated radiation.
As you can see, Chernobyl is slowly coming back to life and animals are the best indicators of this.