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Comment by Joona | Hacker News Reader

I remember seeing a documentary like that on Finnish TV a couple of years back, but it wasn't just about the wolves - it included other animals too. They seem to be doing very well.

Do you happen to remember the name of the documentary? It sounds very interesting.

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There seems to be this public perception that wildlife around Chernobyl is just doing fine. Research indicates otherwise

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24963711

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22514722

The second article goes as far as to propose that [bird] populations are only maintained through immigration from nearby uncontaminated areas.

Perhaps they do well, because the radiation kills off the weak ones relatively quickly (compared to other habitats), and thus the remaining population is actually stronger over time. For humans, that doesn't happen because we try to cure those afflicted which would've otherwise have been "naturally selected out", and so weakens the gene pool over time.

That does not make sense. If the radiation culled the weakest, then it would also affect the stronger individuals. Essentially, radiation would make the stronger weak and make the weak too unhealthy to survive.

More importantly, 'strong' and 'weak' only have meaning relative to a particular evolutionary niche. Adding massive radiation changes the niche so that strong means 'able to survive massive doses of radiation' and 'weak' means 'not'. There is no reason to assume this definition of 'strong' correlates with 'strong' outside a highly irradiated zone.

The wildlife situation in Chernobyl is complex.

Here are some BBC reports. The BBC sometimes mangles science reporting. I'd be interested to read more modern articles.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6946210.stm

> Recent studies said rare species had thrived despite raised radiation levels as a result of no human activity.

> But scientists who assessed the 1986 disaster's impact on birds said the ecological effects were "considerably greater than previously assumed".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14250489

> "But what we're finding is that there is a significant impact on both the population and the biodiversity - the number of species - in the zone. And it's directly proportional to the level of contamination."

> But this is one side of a polarised scientific debate.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9387000/938...

> Birds living around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear accident have 5% smaller brains, an effect directly linked to lingering background radiation.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7949314.stm

> According to researchers working in the exclusion zone surrounding Chernobyl, there is a "strong signal of decline [of insects] associated with the contamination".

> The team found that bumblebees, butterflies, grasshoppers, dragonflies and spiders were affected.

> Do you happen to remember the name of the documentary? It sounds very interesting.

Radioactive wolves of Chernobyl and yes, is great; you can see it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTHBfo_A6No

I saw a French one called 'The Zone', it was very interesting too

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