If it glows it grows
(please excuse the lack of a spellcheck on this one...)
I had heard somewhere that the area around the Chernobyl disaster had a lot of unusual wildlife living in it. I distinctly recall the phrase "heards of tiny horses." Now, to my overly-saturated-with-science fiction-and-fantasy-literature mind, this produced some fascinating images. For some reason, this came to mind today, so I went out to find reported evidence of tiny horses (and, hopefully, a photo or a description what 'tiny' actually meant).
(I read all of the following articles one right after the other, please forgice me if the data I am mentioning is not directly below the appropriate article. I assure you, it's all in there...somewhere.)
Nature thrives in Chernobyl scene of the world's most devastating nuclear accidentby Steve Connor, science editor
the Independent
06/06/200
According to this article, the interest from scientists interested in Ecology, and scientists who specialize in radioecology (I had no idea there was a field of study dedicated to the effects of radiation on ecology), is quite large due to the unique nature of the situation ---> large quantities of radiation dumped into the region, immediately followed by the evacuation of all but a small handful of humans.
The result? Wildlife, plant life, endangered species and nature is both flurishing and returning to it's natural state. While the capture and testing of wildlife has shown a huge amount of radiation and significant changes to DNA (in some species, like moles), there are no obvious changes to the physical appearance of the animals and no affect on their ability to survive and breed. In fact, endangered species are doing extremely well - most likely due to the near elimination of human presence.
Chernobyl Animals Highly Contaminated But Undeformed
University Of Georgia Press release
09/16/1997
After Chernobyl accident wildlife flourishes
Ecological Society of America
August 10, 2005
With the exception of an increase in the incidence of partially albino barn swallows (read: they have a few white feathers here and there), there's no discernable change. While there were reports of birth defects immediately after the accident, they have not continued.
There have been some tudies of migratory birds that show they have a lower production of eggs, that the eggs are more fragile, and the over-all birth rate is down. However, the number of birds is increasing (again, the removal of humans and the restoration of habitat have allowed for this).
There are also horses thriving in the region, but they are not deformed or amazingly modified 'tiny' horses. They are Przewalski's Horse, a breed that was introduced to the area before the accident and is now running wild in perfectly healthy herds. Granted, these horses are smaller than the average domesticated horse, but they're still larger than the miniture horses they use for kiddie rides at county fairs.
Oh, and Wikipedia's notation that these are no longer found in the wild is no longer accurate as they are now in the protected region around Chernobyl...at least, I think this designation is no longer accurate. One of these articles ( I forget which) describes feeding the horses with piles of feed carried in on the back of a truck (just like any horse farm I've ever seen).
FEATURE - Belarus wolves prowl round Chernobyl zone
By Larisa Sayenko
Belarusian Chronicle
10/30/1998
One of the USSR's version of a Park Ranger is interviewed as he gives a tour of the region. This manager of wildlife loves the wolves and it thrilled by their progress. In fact, the govt has authorized the 'culling' (read: killing by preserve employees for the sake of reducing the size of the pack) of wolves to prevent them from eating themselves into extinction or eating the rest of the animals to terribly low levels.
This article also goes over all of the wildlife that's being re-interoduced into the area. Since the region has been made a national preserve (due to the inability for humans to live there) those interested in wildlife and conservation are adding bears and bison and the wolves are already flourishing and...
Fascinating. I could help but read this article and think...the only way to keep the humans out long enough for the land to restore itself is to contaminate the entire area with nuclear dust. Then, with the humans gone, everything else is able to live.
So, radical environmentalists could (in theory) stop pounding spikes into trees and just arrange for massive radioactive contamination of...say...the Alaskan wilderness or Yellowstone National Park.
That is, of course, more than just a little on the crazy side, but it brings up a few interesting points: 1) Just because humans can't live there does not mean that nothing can, and 2) It takes complete contamination of a region to get the humans out long enough to allow an area to heal.
Picnic at Chernobyl
Saturday October 9, 1999
The Guardian
The people living in the preserve are living life as though there is no contamination and just accepting their tumors and lives however they come. People living so close to the wilderness they love while considering themselves already dead (or so the author suggests).
Again, an interesting scenario ---> the only people living with the wilderness, and working to enhance and preserve it, while living off of the land as best they can, are the ones resigned to the fact that doing so will, eventually, kill them at a relatively early age.
Does human society without the constant threat of death by forces beyond human control result in behavior that is damaging to everything around them. Are we creating the predators we have so affectively eliminated? Is there a natural inclination towards the culling of the human species through 'accidents' in arrangement and science and behavior?
The Truth About Chernobyl Is Told
by Zbigniew Jaworowski, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc.
21st Century Science & Technology Magazine
Winter 2000-2001
And here we have the other end of the spectrum. Despite all of the reports of thousands dead (contrary to gov't reports of 30 people) and exceptionally high incidents of cancer, these reports are suggesting that it's all a hoax and radiation contamination causes none of these things.
My earlier comment about getting the humans out long enough for a region to heal must be tempered by another observation...the number of times the former wealth and general richness of the land was mentioned. Not to mention the number of article not cited that examined animal life only in the context of the amount of radiation a human would be exposed to if they were eat/skin/use that animal.
There are many mentions (on all ends of the situation and it's related issues) concerning the numbers of years before humans can move in, and the number of humans who are living there anyway. Some of those that are living there anyway are doing just fine, while the rest a slowly dying an early death.
Yet, some are just fine and the area could be useful for making money...
Maybe it's just my own sense of paranoia and general un-impressed attitude toward the free-market system's out of control state, but I'm sensing a trend toward re-entering the region within the next few decades (instead of the several hundred years it would take for the contamination to wear off). How long before the human species can just stay away?
How long before our amazingly short memories forget about the explosion and the illness and the warning and the research? How many generations before someone decides that it's all ancient history and those people don't know what they're talking about anyway?
How long with the wilds of the area *really* have to heal?
Motorcycling through Pripyat and the Chernobyl Dead Zone: A Photojournal of Elena and her Kawasaki ZZR 1100 travelling in the desolate area around Chernobyl and Pripyat.
And here we have a young woman on a motorcycle biking her way through the area around Chernobyl. Apparently people have tried setting up tour companies for the purpose of letting people pay for the opportunity to see (what people thought would be) the dead zone. Apparently, the deafening silence of no humans in the towns was to much for some tourists and the tours stopped running.
Still, there are adventurers who head into the area and explore the dangerous and forbidden and seldom trodden paths of the protected preserve around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
I had heard somewhere that the area around the Chernobyl disaster had a lot of unusual wildlife living in it. I distinctly recall the phrase "heards of tiny horses." Now, to my overly-saturated-with-science fiction-and-fantasy-literature mind, this produced some fascinating images. For some reason, this came to mind today, so I went out to find reported evidence of tiny horses (and, hopefully, a photo or a description what 'tiny' actually meant).
(I read all of the following articles one right after the other, please forgice me if the data I am mentioning is not directly below the appropriate article. I assure you, it's all in there...somewhere.)
Nature thrives in Chernobyl scene of the world's most devastating nuclear accidentby Steve Connor, science editor
the Independent
06/06/200
According to this article, the interest from scientists interested in Ecology, and scientists who specialize in radioecology (I had no idea there was a field of study dedicated to the effects of radiation on ecology), is quite large due to the unique nature of the situation ---> large quantities of radiation dumped into the region, immediately followed by the evacuation of all but a small handful of humans.
The result? Wildlife, plant life, endangered species and nature is both flurishing and returning to it's natural state. While the capture and testing of wildlife has shown a huge amount of radiation and significant changes to DNA (in some species, like moles), there are no obvious changes to the physical appearance of the animals and no affect on their ability to survive and breed. In fact, endangered species are doing extremely well - most likely due to the near elimination of human presence.
Chernobyl Animals Highly Contaminated But Undeformed
University Of Georgia Press release
09/16/1997
After Chernobyl accident wildlife flourishes
Ecological Society of America
August 10, 2005
With the exception of an increase in the incidence of partially albino barn swallows (read: they have a few white feathers here and there), there's no discernable change. While there were reports of birth defects immediately after the accident, they have not continued.
There have been some tudies of migratory birds that show they have a lower production of eggs, that the eggs are more fragile, and the over-all birth rate is down. However, the number of birds is increasing (again, the removal of humans and the restoration of habitat have allowed for this).
There are also horses thriving in the region, but they are not deformed or amazingly modified 'tiny' horses. They are Przewalski's Horse, a breed that was introduced to the area before the accident and is now running wild in perfectly healthy herds. Granted, these horses are smaller than the average domesticated horse, but they're still larger than the miniture horses they use for kiddie rides at county fairs.
Oh, and Wikipedia's notation that these are no longer found in the wild is no longer accurate as they are now in the protected region around Chernobyl...at least, I think this designation is no longer accurate. One of these articles ( I forget which) describes feeding the horses with piles of feed carried in on the back of a truck (just like any horse farm I've ever seen).
FEATURE - Belarus wolves prowl round Chernobyl zone
By Larisa Sayenko
Belarusian Chronicle
10/30/1998
One of the USSR's version of a Park Ranger is interviewed as he gives a tour of the region. This manager of wildlife loves the wolves and it thrilled by their progress. In fact, the govt has authorized the 'culling' (read: killing by preserve employees for the sake of reducing the size of the pack) of wolves to prevent them from eating themselves into extinction or eating the rest of the animals to terribly low levels.
This article also goes over all of the wildlife that's being re-interoduced into the area. Since the region has been made a national preserve (due to the inability for humans to live there) those interested in wildlife and conservation are adding bears and bison and the wolves are already flourishing and...
Fascinating. I could help but read this article and think...the only way to keep the humans out long enough for the land to restore itself is to contaminate the entire area with nuclear dust. Then, with the humans gone, everything else is able to live.
So, radical environmentalists could (in theory) stop pounding spikes into trees and just arrange for massive radioactive contamination of...say...the Alaskan wilderness or Yellowstone National Park.
That is, of course, more than just a little on the crazy side, but it brings up a few interesting points: 1) Just because humans can't live there does not mean that nothing can, and 2) It takes complete contamination of a region to get the humans out long enough to allow an area to heal.
Picnic at Chernobyl
Saturday October 9, 1999
The Guardian
The people living in the preserve are living life as though there is no contamination and just accepting their tumors and lives however they come. People living so close to the wilderness they love while considering themselves already dead (or so the author suggests).
Again, an interesting scenario ---> the only people living with the wilderness, and working to enhance and preserve it, while living off of the land as best they can, are the ones resigned to the fact that doing so will, eventually, kill them at a relatively early age.
Does human society without the constant threat of death by forces beyond human control result in behavior that is damaging to everything around them. Are we creating the predators we have so affectively eliminated? Is there a natural inclination towards the culling of the human species through 'accidents' in arrangement and science and behavior?
The Truth About Chernobyl Is Told
by Zbigniew Jaworowski, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc.
21st Century Science & Technology Magazine
Winter 2000-2001
And here we have the other end of the spectrum. Despite all of the reports of thousands dead (contrary to gov't reports of 30 people) and exceptionally high incidents of cancer, these reports are suggesting that it's all a hoax and radiation contamination causes none of these things.
My earlier comment about getting the humans out long enough for a region to heal must be tempered by another observation...the number of times the former wealth and general richness of the land was mentioned. Not to mention the number of article not cited that examined animal life only in the context of the amount of radiation a human would be exposed to if they were eat/skin/use that animal.
There are many mentions (on all ends of the situation and it's related issues) concerning the numbers of years before humans can move in, and the number of humans who are living there anyway. Some of those that are living there anyway are doing just fine, while the rest a slowly dying an early death.
Yet, some are just fine and the area could be useful for making money...
Maybe it's just my own sense of paranoia and general un-impressed attitude toward the free-market system's out of control state, but I'm sensing a trend toward re-entering the region within the next few decades (instead of the several hundred years it would take for the contamination to wear off). How long before the human species can just stay away?
How long before our amazingly short memories forget about the explosion and the illness and the warning and the research? How many generations before someone decides that it's all ancient history and those people don't know what they're talking about anyway?
How long with the wilds of the area *really* have to heal?
Motorcycling through Pripyat and the Chernobyl Dead Zone: A Photojournal of Elena and her Kawasaki ZZR 1100 travelling in the desolate area around Chernobyl and Pripyat.
And here we have a young woman on a motorcycle biking her way through the area around Chernobyl. Apparently people have tried setting up tour companies for the purpose of letting people pay for the opportunity to see (what people thought would be) the dead zone. Apparently, the deafening silence of no humans in the towns was to much for some tourists and the tours stopped running.
Still, there are adventurers who head into the area and explore the dangerous and forbidden and seldom trodden paths of the protected preserve around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
posted by A at 1:00 PM
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