Chernobyl All These Years Later: A Surprising 21st Century Wildlife Sanctuary

When I was in my late twenties, I met a remarkable young woman from the Ukraine. I will refer to her as Irena, though that is not her real name. Just twenty-four years old, Irena had come to America after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Pripyat, Ukraine to make her way in the world. She was working as a Russian tutor at the Hartford Graduate Center in Connecticut. After just one session, I found Irena and her stories of the Ukraine utterly intriguing, especially those of the day the radioactive cloud from the Chernobyl reactor explosion blew over her town and enveloped it in darkness. In the middle of a bright, sunny day, she told me the sky turned so dark, it was as if the sun had suddenly been extinguished.

I don't remember much of the Russian Irena taught me in those eight weeks of one-on-one tutorials, but I do remember looking forward to driving to Hartford after work one night a week to meet with Irena. She was fearless and exciting and her plans for the future made me sit on the edge of my seat and hold my breath. I also felt deeply sorry for her tragic encounter with Chernobyl.

Talking with Irena, one could tell she would have made a fabulous mother, compassionate, nurturing, and courageous. But when the radioactive cloud from the Chernobyl disaster settled over her town, it left the women there at high risk for bearing severely deformed children. She and the other women were informed after the incident that they would never be able to have normal pregnancies because of the exposure to radioactive particles. In addition, everyone was told of their elevated risk of cancer. This news left her bitter and reckless, and she lived her personal life on the edge from then on.

I was thinking of Irena just the other day and started wondering about Chernobyl all these years later. What had become of the place that inflicted such pain on Irena and hundreds of thousands of other people? My research turned up some amazing facts.

There are small groups of people, mostly elderly, that refused to leave their homes in the Chernobyl area. The government leaves them alone, but strictly forbids any others from living in the area again as the radiation levels are still harmful. Still, the Ukrainian government started allowing limited, guided tourism in 2003 ¹.

Chernobyl and the 1500 square mile surrounding area was designated a wildlife sanctuary in 2000 ². Here, at the close of the first decade of the twenty-first century, some 23 years after Chernobyl's reactor exploded, unplanned forests have sprung up from the paved streets and birds have nested in the reactor building rafters. Most notable, is the flourishing of Przewalski's horse, believed to be the only never domesticated, wild horse left in the world ³. In the 1960's, Przewalki's horse became extinct in the wild ³. Since then, various programs around the world have tried to reintroduce zoo bred specimens back into the wild. It is believed that a herd of 100 or so Przewalskis' horses now roam the still tainted land around Chernobyl, 20 years after a few zoo specimens were released into the area in 1998 ¹.

There are over 200 species of birds and over 400 other species of animals, including fish in the river that call Chernobyl home ¹. There are no longer occurrences of grotesque mutations and birth defects found in these animals in the 10 year period immediately following the disaster, although it is rumored that the catfish are enormous.

Yes, the animals that have taken Chernobyl and the acreage around it as their home still have higher than normal levels of radiation in their bodies. The scientists who study the wildlife at Chernobyl are only allowed to remain on the site for 15 day periods every three months ¹. Yes, the smaller species aren't back yet. The tiny ants, the bees and other insects have not made great strides in Chernobyl yet. Certain plants and trees are still struggling to survive normally there again, too ⁴. It is a given, though, that they will eventually come back, as the radiation levels decrease.

It is truly a marvel of God's plan to contemplate the post-apocalyptic sanctuary that has taken over Chernobyl. It does not lesson the suffering of those who lived through the disaster, or make up for those who lost their lives and loved ones to radiation induced cancers through these long years. But it gives our flawed civilization hope that our mistakes will never be too big for God and nature to overcome and make right once again.

Note: If you are as fascinated by Chernobyl's rebirth as I am, you might be interested in reading Mary Mycio's Wormwood Forest: A Natural History of Chernobyl, copyright 2005.

Sources:

1. "Animal Planet News:Chernobyl Wildlife Thriving," April, 2006, animal.discovery.com/news/afp/20060417/chernobyl.html.

2. "Chernobyl Today," August 2009, RussianSentry.com.

3. "Mongolian Resorts, Travel, Tours and Adventure - Przewalski's Horse," mongolia-resorts.com/about-mongolia/animals-of-mongolia/przewalski's-horse/.

4. "Despite Mutations, Chernobyl Wildlife Is Thriving," April, 2006, news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/04/0426_060426_chernobyl_2.html.