The Dogs of Chernobyl
science.org
science.org
The stray dogs in the Chernobyl exclusion zone were surprisingly friendly. Better socialized and behaved than a good number of pet dogs I see in the USA.
As mentioned elsewhere in the replies, if you think the program is interesting, consider donating to the Clean Futures Fund: https://www.cleanfutures.org/dogs-of-chernobyl/
Free-roaming dogs (in non-threatening environments) can socialize much more naturally than city dogs, who spend most of their time isolated indoors with few people and animals to interact with (stunting their social development).
The dogs are as loyal as I've ever seen while you're there. When you leave, they move onto the next group. The area is great, and the dog friend I made, just added to the experience.
"Everything I've done..."
Close up of pup's face. Close up of main character's face.
"... I did for you".
Close up of character's hand tapping the tablet. Cue soft ethereal music with female choir. There is a very bright explosion in the distance. The main character turns back. Camera zooms into their eye, where you can see the reflection of the blast wave fast approaching. White screen.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Dog
Bow-wow-wow-yippie-yo-yippie-yeah…
"The Chernobyl dog population has great potential for informing environmental resource management studies in a resurging population. Its greatest potential, however, lies in understanding the biological underpinnings of animal and, ultimately, human survival in regions of high and continuous environmental assault."
Not surprising since even the title is basically the same message, duplicated.
I found it fascinating how they seem to have become their own breed with a beautiful monochrome coat, and are very friendly and approachable to humans still.
I've visited Kyiv twice and both times went on a guided tour around Chernobyl and Pripyat. I have fond memories of the beautiful dogs that knew how to play the tourists for food. I had read about them beforehand so I brought them some proper dog food. One of them had the biggest tick I've ever seen, it was almost the size of my thumb. Even though they roamed free some nice people care for them. They were tagged so probably most of them either sterilized or vaccinated.
Tagged also to include gps, one would hope.
In East Africa, the cows would get these massive ticks that were visible, when driving past on the road. They were the size of ping-pong balls (and sort of looked like bluish ones).
I don't care about writing a webserver in scheme or whatnot. I come here for this stuff these days.
I wish there was an easy way to find stuff like this and filter out the... Normal hn stuff. I love the long reads I've found here. Eg "the secret of nanda devi" or "the hunt for the death valley Germans"
> Genome-wide profiles from Chernobyl, purebred and free-breeding dogs, worldwide reveal that the individuals from the power plant and Chernobyl City are genetically distinct, with the former displaying increased intrapopulation genetic similarity and differentiation. Analysis of shared ancestral genome segments highlights differences in the extent and timing of western breed introgression. Kinship analysis reveals 15 families, with the largest spanning all collection sites within the radioactive exclusion zone, reflecting migration of dogs between the power plant and Chernobyl City.
Does that now mean they maybe gained/lost something or hardened, or just that tribes establlished themselves there?
It’s a fairly unusual situation where winter is a larger issue than the radiation: https://www.newsweek.com/meet-dogs-chernobyl-these-wild-anim...
It would be fascinating to compare this to isolated speciation which can drive to weird gigantism or dwarfism. I'd imagine that the advantages of eg being social to humans played differently.
Seemingly the primary limitation is winter temperatures as workers are providing a long term food source. People also culled dogs right after the meltdown, and there’s been some effort to remove dogs from the area after that. Which again isn’t adversarial.
Of course, that site has lots of heart-wrenching pictures of puppies.
If anyone has seen the new German-language All Quiet On the Western Front (richly deserving of all the accolades, IMNSHO), the initial scene is downright heartbreaking (not like the rest of the movie is any more upbeat, but that scene is the one that sticks).
That comes across as an especially clear, or at least understandable, statement about why a paper represents preliminary research.
They are free roaming, that meant they could migrate if they really want. ..
One thing to understand about Ukraine is that many animals are kind of like community pets. They don’t belong to anyone in particular, but they live in one area and are fed and cared for by all the people in the area. People (and even businesses!) build small shelters for the animals. The Silpo supermarket downstairs from the last apartment I lived in had its own little cat shelter fit for about six cats, and painted nicely with Silpo branding.
A few dogs which otherwise would have been good candidates were too internally contaminated to re-home. Not too bad, it would have been something equivalent to a few x-rays a year if the dog slept on your bed every night. But the modal rescue dog has no radiation risk at all to worry about.
Beyond that, the workers in the exclusion zone are quite fond and protective of the stray dogs, so I think there would have been significant blowback if a significant portion of the dogs were re-homed.