It Turns Out That Humanity is Worse than Radioactivity

At least if you are a wolf.

Despite the radiation, the wolf population surrounding Chernobyl has increased 7 fold.

The most expensive nuclear disaster in human history turned 40 on Sunday, but the consequences have been almost perversely benign for some of the region’s wildlife.

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Environmental scientist Jim Smith at the University of Portsmouth, who has studied this “Chernobyl exclusion zone” (CEZ) for over 30 years, told The Guardian last week that wildlife in this would-be radioactive wasteland has improved even as it’s become surrounded by war.

“Wolf populations are seven times higher than they were before the accident because there is less human pressure,” according to Smith, who noted that populations of elk, roe, deer, and rabbit have also flourished in the zone.

“The ecosystem in the exclusion zone is much better than it was before the accident,” Smith opined. “It’s been a very powerful demonstration of the relative impact of the world’s worst nuclear accident, which is not so big, and the impact of human habitation, which is devastating.”

Humanity is not good wolves, or other living things. 

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Evolutionary biologists at Princeton discovered something unique about this gray wolf population, which likely helped these predators carve out their new niche in the exclusion zone: mutations that appear to make Chernobyl’s wolves more resistant to cancer. 

This is not particularly surprising, though it is likely that there was a f%$#-ton of cancer on the way to this outcome.