The Animals of Chernobyl | The New York Times

Okay, looks like a nice spider web over here, let's see if we can catch this on film, we missed it a little bit. You know, what was invisible now becomes visible. Nice, yes, that's perfect, yes, yes, this one is sitting. in being bathed in approximately 45 microreceptors per hour or so, which is quite radioactive. In 1986, an explosion and fire at the nuclear reactor in what was then the Soviet Union in Chernobyl, Ukraine, released a plume of radioactive fallout that left a large swath. of the region here uninhabitable since the creation of a thousand square meter exclusion zone prohibiting human activity has led some to declare the area a restored Eden teeming with wildlife, but for more than a decade Timothy Muso, a American scientist, has conducted extensive biological study here. and their studies have shown that the recovery of life has been much slower than previously believed, making it a perfect area for biological studies because we see a diversity of plants and

animals

, it is one of the warmest areas of the Chernobyl zone and, therefore, from our point of view.

We know from previous work that this level of chronic exposure is above that and that most species will not tolerate anything this year. We have been watching the small rodents. We've been looking at spider ears. Earlier this year we were here working with the birds. We found that the abundance of many bird species is depressed in these high pollution areas, leading to an overall decline in biodiversity on the order of you know, 50% fewer species in warm areas and there should be uh if there would be if There wouldn't be radioactivity in the area. Moo says he has observed much higher frequencies of tumors and physical abnormalities such as deformed beaks among birds compared to those in uncontaminated areas; has measured declines in insect and spider populations, and yet in a recent paper published last month muso has also shown that some birds here may be adapting to high levels of radiation, which is why these are special digital audio recorders. which are designed to capture the high-frequency sounds that bats produce as they echolocate, fly and try to capture insects. the frequency of the calls we can get an idea of ​​the abundance of bats, yeah, look at these mushrooms here, let's see if it goes up, look at that, huh, uh, oh 43 42 43, so yeah, this mushroom is definitely a lot hotter than the surroundings.

There is. The legacy of Chernobyl muso says can be seen not only in animal life. The trees cut here show a dramatic change in the color of their rings. Exactly in 1986 it occurred to us, after visiting Fukushima last year, that some of the spider webs were a little visible. strange and that's why we thought we would test that hypothesis in a very scientific way by capturing images of as many spider webs as we can find in cold and hot areas of the same type of species to see if there is more variability or you know, less less less structure in the webs in These radioactive areas can serve as a biomarker of background radiation.

We are in the city of Chernobyl, in the center of Chernobyl, so to speak, and what we find is that the frequency of the aberrant color. The patterns on the backsides of these insects are directly proportional to how radioactive the area is. The one on this side is relatively normal and then you look at the other one and see that the blackheads are kind of fused together thanks to Luo's work. Chernobyl will continue for years to come. He has expanded his study to Fukushima, Japan, and hopes to shed more light on the lasting effects of radiation on biological systems, including humans.