Do Animals in Chernobyl’s Fallout Zone Glow?

I visited Chernobyl a couple of years ago and was stunned by the amount of large fish in the waterways (a canal now cut off from the Dnieper river, IIRC). It seemed you could almost walk from bank to bank on the swarming fish.<p>It made me wonder if this is what European waterways were generally like before us humans fished and fished and fished and polluted the Rhine, Danube, Volga, Dnieper, and other major European rivers.

This is a nice article. There's a problem with a lot of science reporting that people just report the controversy. Most people cannot assess a scientific paper (if the article bothers to link to the actual research) and so it'd be great if media could do a breakdown - "suitable sample?" "randomised?" "controlled?" "peer reviewed?".<p>Some old reports:<p>Wildlife preserve not scientifically justified (<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6946210.stm" rel="nofollow">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6946210.stm</a>)<p>Significant impact on biodiversity and population numbers (but also that this is a polarised debate) (<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14250489" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14250489</a>)<p>Chernobyl birds have small brains (<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9387000/9387395.stm" rel="nofollow">http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9387000/938...</a>)<p>Insect decline (<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7949314.stm" rel="nofollow">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7949314.stm</a>)

I would like to know the opinion of others more knowledgeable: can't it just be because humans have such a long life span? So, maybe the animals die before the radiation actually has any effect?

the problem with some parts of the article is that in the hard high level contaminated parts we have small animal populations and in the exclusion zone parts not highly contaminated we increasing animal populations coming form other areas. Without some way methodology to weigh or readjust the numbers with new weights any study will generate error prone conclusions.<p>Not only that but when an animal has a shorter life-span due to radiation where do the effects show up? Its not showing in the population increase as the dying happens after the animal has given its maximum number of offspring as the study is studying long-term radiation effects from long-term radiation.

Well... one cool thing about Chernobyl is those black mushrooms in the reactor, that do radiosyntesys (yes, they "eat" radiation, awesome).<p>But no, they don't glow, quite the opposite (they absorb a wide range of electromagnetic frequencies to its internal use).

<p><pre><code> "Those studies found mammal diversity and abundance equal to that of a protected nature reserve, with rare species including bears, lynx, river otter, and badger as well as introduced herds of European bison and Przewalski’s horses. Bird diversity is even richer and includes 61 rare species. Whooper swans—never before reported in the region—now appear regularly." </code></pre> I love how the best conclusion you can get from this research is that even nuclear fallout is better for the environment than the presence of humans in the area.

wow, the title reflects how epic is the development of journalism standards.

This is the money quote:<p>&#62;The prevailing scientific view of the exclusion zone has become that it is an unintentional wildlife sanctuary. This conclusion rests on the premise that radiation is less harmful to wildlife populations than we are.<p>I don't consider myself an environmentally focused person, but the effects humans have on the ecosystem cannot be overstated. I'm not saying the effects are negative or positive, just that we as a species need to be very cognizant of the changes we cause, and we need to think critically about what ramifications those changes have.