Wildlife Defies Chernobyl Radiation

An anonymous reader writes "The BBC reports that wildlife has reappeared in the Chernobyl region even with high levels of radiation. Populations of animals both common and rare have increased substantially and there are tantalizing reports of bear footprints and confirmed reports of large colonies of wild boars and wolves. These animals are radioactive but otherwise healthy. A large number of animals died initially due to problems like destroyed thyroid glands but their offspring seem to be physically healthy. Experiments have shown the DNA strands have undergone considerable mutation but such mutations have not impacted crucial functions like reproduction. It is remarkable that such a phenomenon has occurred contrary to common assumptions about nuclear waste. The article includes some controversial statements recommending disposal of nuclear waste in tropical forests to keep forest land away from greedy developers and farmers"

no worries

[caffeinemessiah (918089)]

confirmed reports of large colonies of wild boars and wolves...have undergone considerable mutation but such mutations have not impacted crucial functions like reproduction.

We're fine until we have confirmed reports of colonies of large wild boars and wolves

Re:no worries

[cazbar (582875)]

Buttercup: Westley, what about the R.O.U.S.'s?
Westley: Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist.

Monty Pythons Meets News Journalist

[physicsphairy (720718)]

"radioactive but otherwise healthy"

I recall a certain knight... a black one... who expressed similar optimism in the face of suffering personal maladies.

Re:Monty Pythons Meets News Journalist

[by Anonymous Coward]

'Tis but an extra arm!

But ...

[TheRealMindChild (743925)]

They have only whitnessed this over how many generations? I would imagine with every offspring, you have a handful more mutations. After a while, you have oatmeal.

Re:But ...

[dsci (658278)]

I remember reading about thirteen years ago something similar about the Hiroshima radiation results on humans. The folks that were alive when irradiated had all sorts of the expected problems, and their kids too but to a lesser extent. The grandkids (and subsequent offspring) were showing no signs of the exposure.

Re:But ...

[modecx (130548)]

The grandkids (and subsequent offspring) were showing no signs of the exposure.

Just to be clear, we are talking about the same Japan, right?

Re:But ...

[NitsujTPU (19263)]

pssst. You're usually supposed to provide a counter-example. Otherwise, it becomes two non-experts slapping each other's wrists.

Re:But ...

[Vreejack (68778)]

No. Every generation tends to get rid of bad mutations. It's called natural selection. While a few alarming but non-fatal mutations will occasionally be expressed, most mutations will simply result in reduced fertility due to terminated abnormal pregnancy. But wild animals are generally fecund enough to make up for the losses.

Consider that the average human conception has about three dangerous mutations even without Chernobyl. Why aren't we oatmeal? Because a goodly percentage of conceptions never make it past the blastocyst stage due to excessive nasty chromosomal damage, while we lucky survivors had fewer.

Is there a name for this?

[wombatmobile (623057)]

He has found ample evidence of DNA mutations, but nothing that affected the animals' physiology or reproductive ability. "Nothing with two heads," he says.

It's as if the positive changes are being selected in favor of the negative changes.

Re:Is there a name for this?

[brian0918 (638904)]

"It's as if the positive changes are being selected in favor of the negative changes."

It's simple really... the creatures that survived were more intelligently designed than those that died.

Re:Is there a name for this?

[42Penguins (861511)]

Oddly enough, those characteristics that you consider "positive" in this situation are precisely those that the Flying Spaghetti Monster decided to bless this new generation of animals with.
Verily I say unto you, they HAVE been touched by His Noodly Appendage. Ramen.

Whooosh!

[jamesh (87723)]

That's the sound of the joke going over your head :)

DNA can repair itself, Life will survive!

[Proudrooster (580120)]

Not all damage to DNA from radiation is harmful. Cells have repair systems and can quickly repair breaks in DNA, with no long-term cellular consequence. Alternatively, the repair may not return the DNA to its original form, but may retain its integrity. If cellular damage is not repaired, it may prevent the cell from surviving or reproducing, or it may result in a viable but modified cell. These two outcomes have different results, leading either to deterministic or stochastic effects [Court of Appeals, 1999, pp. 37, 38].

Source: http://www.yuccamountain.org/price003.htm [yuccamountain.org]

That doesn't sound so good

[sl4shd0rk (755837)]

It's not hard to imagine many of the conceptions about radiation exposure may have been a bit over estimated, simply because nobody has really been willing to undergo an experiment of that caliber. I would not believe the animals are enjoying their radiation poisoning however until I was able to ask them.

Contrary to Common Assumptions?

[MooseByte (751829)]

"Experiments have shown the DNA strands have undergone considerable mutation but such mutations have not impacted crucial functions like reproduction. It is remarkable that such a phenomenon has occurred contrary to common assumptions about nuclear waste."

Ummm... the animals are radioactive and their DNA has undergone considerable mutation. What exactly is contrary here to the common assumptions of radiological contamination? Sure matches my own assumptions.

Sure they can reproduce but I wouldn't exactly be jumping with glee over this "recovery". The damage merely has yet to express itself.

Though if any of the local turtles grow to human size and start dressing like ninjas, I'll take back everything I said.

Radioactive Bears?

[Kenshin (43036)]

A former Soviet Republic has developed Radioactive Bears?

Someone get Stephen Colbert on the phone right away! The world must be warned!

Not that surprising

[onco_p53 (231322)]

I am not that surprised really, that is what natural selection is about. The DNA coding for many genes also has quite a bit of redundancy built in, naturally with large radiation doses critical genes may be damaged, but given enough time favourable mutants will arise.

It reminds me of the large scale experiments done on plant breeding [1] where radioactive material was placed in the centre of a field of crops, and favourable mutants were selected. I love telling this story to anti-GE people, who probably eat plant products produced as a result of these experiments done predominantly in the 1970's. At least with GE only a single well studied change is being made.

[1] http://www.nias.affrc.go.jp/eng/gfs/index.html [affrc.go.jp]

If you want a bit more depth

[Anonymous Cowpat (788193)]

This story was covered in this months (last months now? the next issue is due soon) National Geographic. Definately one of the better featured pieces of the last few months

long-term effect

[lawpoop (604919)]

Well, a lot of animals have life cycles under a year. Even bears don't often live past 20, right? And they become sexually mature and reproduce within a few years. The radiation wouldn't interrupt the life of short-lived animals.

So, not everyone living in an irradiated area will have their flesh falling off, but for us long-lifed humans, the life would be filled with more misery and an early ending. Maybe cancer at 20. And for normal human socities, "old farts" (those over 30) are really what drive the society.

long-term effect

[gansch (939712)]

I took classes from a professor studying worms and spiders in the Chernobyl area, and he found remarkable genetic mutations (e.g., changes in the number and size of chromosomes, large sections of additional DNA, etc.) and behavioral changes (e.g., worms switching to from asexual to sexual reproduction).

Since these organisms have such short lifespans, there have been ample generations since the nuclear accident for the organisms to go locally extinct or mutate into different species. But, that has not been the case. These local populations have continued to survive without deleterious effects on the population level.

Populations of organisms with longer lifespans may take longer to recover to pre-blast levels (although from the sound of the article and my previous knowledge the opposite has occurred) and may experience a genetic bottleneck effect (which may be countered by mutations), but genomes are resiliant and it is unlikely that the populations would never recover.

Remember that glowing pig story...

[Winlin (42941)]

from a few weeks ago. They didn't breed those in Europe; they just caught a few Chernobyl ones. They would have got a bear too, but those things move amazingly fast on all eights.

A bunch of thoughts

[subreality (157447)]

• Sure enough, life adapts when it has to.
  
• The current radiation levels are probably a lot lower than the levels when the area was freshly sprayed with molten core and irradiated particles.
  
• The radiation isn't *that* bad. We'd consider it wildly unacceptable if 1 in 10,000 people died over the course of 5 years. Animals won't notice.
  
• Getting rid of humans is *great* for wildlife.
  

So why are we surprised that any of this is happening?

Re:No suprise

[Aqua OS X (458522)]

I highly doubt this has anything to do with mother nature adapting in a relatively short period of time. Stuff like that is for comic books. Radiation levels, while still incredibly unhealthy, have dropped considerably.

I would imagine animals and plantlife are not thriving or living as well as they should be. Radiation levels in outlaying areas have probbaly dropped to levels that allow life to screw faster then it is consumed by disease and cancer.

Heck people that lived in the chemical waste dump of Love Canal could still have kids... but in a toxic situation like that you're gon'a have a flipper baby or two, and life expectancy is going to be fairly bad.

This woman motorcycled through Chernobyl not to recently. In many parts radiation levels were safe enough for her to travel around. As I recall she carried a geiger counter, but didn't wear a radiation suit. She didn't venture around the epicenter of disaster, but she took a lot of rad photos, and saw wild life.
http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/jour nal/articles.html [angelfire.com]

But who knows, perhaps radiation has produced a race of super bears which are immune to nuclear weapons. If so, someone should notify Steven Colbert.

Re:Disposal of nuclear waste could be trivial

[raoul666 (870362)]

You're calling building a space elevator trivial? Damn, what do you consider hard?