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Wildlife Returning To Chernobyl
The wilderness is encroaching over abandoned towns in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. One of the elderly residents who refused to evacuate the contaminated area says packs of wolves have eaten two of her dogs, and wild boar trample through her cornfield. Scientist are divided as to whether or not the animals are flourishing in the highly radioactive environment: "Robert J. Baker of Texas Tech University says the mice and other rodents he has studied at Chernobyl since the early 1990s have shown remarkable tolerance for elevated radiation levels. But Timothy Mousseau of the University of South Carolina, a biologist who studies barn swallows at Chernobyl, says that while wild animals have settled in the area, they have struggled to build new populations."
It's hard to attract females when you have 2 beaks, 3 hooves and only 1 eye.
Packs of wolves have eaten two of her dogs, the 73-year-old says, and wild boar trample through her cornfield. And she says fox, rabbits and snakes infest the meadows near her tumbledown cottage. ... Then we have... Others say animals may be filtering into the zone, but they appear to suffer malformations and other ills.. Inference: She saw what she thought was a pack of wolves when in fact it was a three headed wolf.
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Finally a town I can look normal in!
The Bikini atoll was also evacuated of people and set off-limits to fishing after the nuclear weapons tests the US did there in the 1950s. Today Bikini has the most abundant wildlife in the Pacific.
Any photos of giant insects or ninja turtles? At least maybe a cross between a spider and a man?
Damn. Radiation in real life is BORING.
Given the choice of sharing the environment with humans or radiation, animals would much rather have the radiation.
...or looking for an intriguing read on a Friday morning, this young lady Elena describes her motorcycle ride to and through the so called Chernobyl "dead zone", with pictures. Interesting read.
Beware of the Leopard.
The article seems to posit a false dichotomy between increased rates of cancer and deformity and a flourishing animal population. The usual mutation rate for most animals is pretty damn small. You could probably increase it 100 fold if not more and still maintain a large population of healthy breeding animals. Since animals, like humans, are naturally programed to prefer to breed with healthy members of their species there is no reason to think that the harmful mutations would 'take over' and cause the local animals to die out. Also just because more animals die of cancer doesn't mean they don't live long enough to successfully breed.
I mean it should be a lot like inbreeding. Sure inbreeding increases the number of seriously fucked up members of the population significantly so you wouldn't want to do it with humans but it can also be used to help establish certain useful traits fairly quickly. The animals living in the Chernobyl area might have more deformed babies, and no doubt if they had to fairly compete with non-irradiated members of their kind they would be at a disadvantage, but the long term effect might just be to increase the rate at which they evolve.
Of course you can't really decide this with a thought experiment but it is annoying that the article suggests increased deformity and cancer rates in individual animals is incompatible with overall health of the species/group.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
The article reports that one third of nestlings are malformed. What we have is a fairly natural cut: If the offspring is viable, it will end up being observed as behaving normally, it if is not then it won't be observed since it will be dead from, say, having the wrong shaped beak for its niche. It will be absent from counting surveys, making them biased. Most mutations are harmful so they do not survive. But, so long as less corrupted genetic material can migrate in, you'll get a superfical appearance of normalcy.
The reason for preserving wilderness is to preserve biodiversity which is essential to maintaining a strong ecosystem. This accidental wilderness has many counts against it in that context.
One must remember the shorter length of reproductive generations that many wild animals have.
For those who have yearly reproduction cycles, we are looking at 21 years, twenty generations for evolution to take place. Those with shorter cycles, such as mice and rats, etc. They probably have evolved enough protection through 50 or more generations that life for them is not so much of an issue.
Creatures with longer cycles, such as humans, would probably have a hard time adapting via evolution. The positive note hear is the relative short half life, but it is still a problem for future generations.
There is a study that indicates that low levels of radiation can have positive effects on health. Not that I would recommend moving to Chernobyl any time soon.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"