The Chernobyl nuclear disaster zone, sealed off to humans for four decades, supports more wildlife now than any formally protected nature area in northern Ukraine, according to a new study.
The radioactive landscape, too dangerous for human life, now boasts some of the world’s wildest horses, wolves, and Eurasian lynx.
Researchers deployed 174 camera traps across 60,000 sq km of northern Ukraine between 2020 and 2021, and captured nearly 31,000 animal sightings involving 13 mammal species. The exclusion zone alone accounted for 19,832 of these sightings, more than 63 per cent of the total, and was the only site where all 13 species appeared. The Cheremskyi Nature Reserve, a formally designated wildlife protected area, recorded only one.
Researchers believe the size of the area and the strictly enforced restrictions on human access are the main reasons for it being more conducive to wildlife than areas with formal conservation status.
“Protected areas are most effective when they are large and contiguous, and human access restrictions are actively enforced,” notes the study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
The exclusion zone was created after a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded on 26 April 1986, scattering radioactive contamination across Europe and forcing the evacuation of nearby towns, including Pripyat.
The area was designated a reserve by Ukraine in 2016, and is known as the Chernobyl Radiation and Ecological Biosphere Reserve. It covers roughly 2,600 sq km.
The near total absence of human activity allowed species that were locally extinct before the disaster to return. Brown bears, absent from the region for more than a century, recolonised the zone while wolves and lynx re-established populations across both Ukrainian and Belarusian parts of the exclusion zone.
Przewalski’s horses, native to Mongolia and genetically distinct from domestic breeds, were introduced to the Ukrainian zone in 1998 and 1999, with an initial population of 23 animals. By 2021, the number had reached 120. They have since dispersed beyond the zone into Belarus and across the Pripyat river.
The wildlife gap between the exclusion zone and the protected areas was stark. Eurasian lynx were nearly four times more likely to be present in the exclusion zone than in the Rivne and Cheremskyi reserves. Wolves and red foxes followed a similar pattern, both being far more prevalent in the exclusion zone than anywhere else in the study area.
Unprotected land in northern Ukraine fared no better than many of the designated reserves nearby.
“Non-protected areas had species composition and occupancy values similar to small-sized protected areas,” the latest study points out, adding that smaller reserves “may merely be too small to sustain permanent abundant populations of species with extensive home ranges”.
The study did not assess the effects of radiation on wildlife populations, citing prior research from the Belarusian part of the exclusion zone that mammal distribution was unaffected by caesium-137 levels.
However, conditions in the region have changed sharply since the research was conducted. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 brought military activity through the exclusion zone and the protected areas along the border with Belarus.
Fires linked to military operations have swept through the zone’s forests, risking radioactive particles getting back into the air.
Civilian monitoring and research activities have been severely restricted across the border zone since the war began.
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