Fukujima Chernobyl nuclear zone proved that planet earth will heal as man been rid of

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https://www.rt.com/news/340739-chernobyl-wildlife-photographic-study/

Wildlife thriving without humans in post-apocalyptic Chernobyl nuclear zone – study
Published time: 23 Apr, 2016 21:35
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© Vasily Fedosenko
© Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters
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Animals in the Chernobyl exclusion zone have not been wiped out by the nuclear fallout contaminating the land, but are actually thriving in the absence of humans, according to a new ecological study.
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A series of explosions at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1984 set off a catastrophic chain of events that are still being felt today.

The power plant disaster remains one of the worst nuclear accidents on record, with the destruction of the facility’s reactor 4 on April 26 exposing large parts of the Ukraine and Belarus to harmful radiation.
A radiation sign is seen in the 30 km (19 miles) exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the abandoned village of Dronki, Belarus. © Vasily Fedosenko
A radiation sign is seen in the 30 km (19 miles) exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the abandoned village of Dronki, Belarus. © Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters

While most people were evacuated from the 4,300 square-kilometer area known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, animals were left to forage in the highly radioactive environment.

Now a new study conducted by researchers from the University of Georgia (UGA) suggests that the wildlife population hasn’t died off in the toxic landscape, but actually flourished.
Elks are seen in the 30 km (19 miles) exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor near the abandoned village of Dronki, Belarus. © Vasily Fedosenko
Elks are seen in the 30 km (19 miles) exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor near the abandoned village of Dronki, Belarus. © Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters

The group used 94 baited scent stations and 30 remote camera traps set up within the Polesie State Radio-ecological Reserve, a highly contaminated area in south Belarus.

The zone is predominantly forested and abandoned agricultural land, pock marked with empty villages.

Carried out during a five week period between October and November of 2014, the project captured 14 species of mammal on film, with 173 animal detections observed overall.

It shows that among the creatures feeding off the land are the Eurasian bison, red squirrel, moose, boar, and gray wolves.

Many of the animals were also documented in a recent visit to the zone by Reuters photographers.
Wolves walk in the 30 km (19 miles) exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the abandoned village of Orevichi, Belarus. © Vasily Fedosenko
Wolves walk in the 30 km (19 miles) exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the abandoned village of Orevichi, Belarus. © Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters

“For this study we deployed cameras in a systematic way across the entire Belarus section of the CEZ and captured photographic evidence – strong evidence – because these are pictures that everyone can see,” said lead researcher James Beasley in a UGA statement.

“We didn’t find any evidence to support the idea that populations are suppressed in highly contaminated areas.

“What we did find was these animals were more likely to be found in areas of preferred habitat that have the things they need – food and water.”

While the study suggests that the wildlife population in the area appears to be in prime health, it did not examine the actual animals.

Evidence compiled by Dr. Timothy Mousseau, a biologist from the University of South Carolina, had previously highlighted mutations among the bird population, including tumors, unusual pigmentation, and brain abnormalities.
A magpie flies over a barbed wire fence at the 30 km (19 miles) exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor near the abandoned village of Babchin, Belarus. © Vasily Fedosenko
A magpie flies over a barbed wire fence at the 30 km (19 miles) exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor near the abandoned village of Babchin, Belarus. © Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters

In 2014, the scientist told the New York Times how some bird species appeared to have evolved to survive in the harsh environment.

The latest UGA study was published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology.

Its findings contradict those of previous studies which have claimed that the fallout from the meltdown, whose cleanup required 600,000 workers, is damaging the area’s natural wildlife.

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Re: Fukujima Chernobyl nuclear zone proved that planet earth will heal as man been ri

http://www.nhk.or.jp/japan311/kuro-wild.html

This page is adapted from the original Japanese transcript of NHK’s Today’s Close-Up broadcast on July 11, 2013


Today's Close-Up Wildlife Reclaims Fukushima

“Incredible! A rat ate it!”
(Resident in Fukushima)

“...and a pack of plum liquor!”
(Resident in Fukushima)

This area, not very far from Tokyo, is being overrun by rats and other wild animals.
Wild boars are crossing the streets in broad daylight.

“That monkey is asleep!”

The monkey looks relaxed.
All of this would have been unthinkable before March 2011.
The area is close to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. All residents have been forced to evacuate.
Many hope to return once radiation levels fall.
A huge growth in the population of rats is threatening their hopes.

“There’s no way we can live here like this.”
(Resident in Fukushima)

What used to be well-cultivated farmland has turned into grassy wasteland.
This has created ideal conditions for wild animals to thrive.
In May, experts from Fukushima Prefecture and the International Atomic Energy Agency started looking into the situation.
“Wild animals are adapting faster than we can keep up with.”
(Wild animal survey leader)

The encroachment of wild animals is threatening to ruin people’s lives.

It’s been two years and 4 months since high levels of radiation forced people to evacuate areas around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. This exodus has caused profound changes in the area’s ecosystem because of the huge impact humans have on the natural environment. The change is a new threat that people have to confront.
Until the accident, the area offered a rich natural environment. Farmers worked their fields, coexisting with wild animals that lived in the mountains and forests.

But over the past two years, fields were left unattended. They have turned into vast expanses of weeds. They’ve become ideal habitats for wild animals, whose population is thriving.

While animals reclaimed the living sphere of humans, their behavioral patterns and habits also started to change. Some are causing extensive property damage. How far have wild animals spread? How many live in these areas? Researchers have finally begun surveying the environmental changes that occurred after the evacuation.

Let’s first look at the damage animals are causing in the area. A large presence of wild animals could dash the residents’ hopes of returning home as soon as radiation levels drop and the clean-up of their homes is complete.

Rats causing increasing damage in areas surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant

A large part of Okuma town in Fukushima prefecture remains heavily contaminated. Entry is heavily restricted. The town lies 3 kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. As residents make a brief return home, experts join them to study the situation in the no-entry zone.

 

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Re: Fukujima Chernobyl nuclear zone proved that planet earth will heal as man been ri

http://www.natureworldreport.com/20...riving-in-nuclear-wasteland-around-chernobyl/


Chernobyl: Why a radioactive wasteland is a haven for wildlife

Where humans cannot tread, animals often thrive. This is certainly proving true for the Chernobyl exclusion zone, a radioactive wasteland where wildlife is thriving in a space now unsuitable for human use. Meanwhile, a similar situation is unfolding in Fukushima.
By Brian Anderson -
October 6, 2015
Chernobyl abandoned shack
"Abandoned village near Chernobyl" by author: slawojar 小山 - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons

Sometimes, something that seems terrible can actually turn out to be good, or at the very least have a silver lining. Take the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster, one of only two category 7 nuclear disasters. The disaster spread radiation across Europe, causing livestock and people to get sick, and even resulting in an increased number of abortions as mothers feared that their babies would be born with deformities.

Sounds horrible right? And in most ways the disaster was indeed tragic. The meltdown in Ukraine may ultimately turn out to be a good thing for the local wildlife, wildlife. Deer, boar, and wolves are all thriving in the quarantine zone. Findings published in a recent study in Current Biology have concluded that not only are mammals returning to the area, but their numbers actually appear to be substantially higher now than they were before the disaster struck.

The land immediately surrounding Chernobyl is tightly controlled, with access limited, because radiation is still present. This means humans are few and far in-between, but wildlife can come and go as it pleases. Turns out many animals are settling into the 1000 square mile exclusion zone, with many of them appearing to be fleeing from human occupied areas.

It doesn’t appear that the animals have come up with a way to cope with the high levels of radiation found in the area. Instead, the radiation is likely still affecting the animals, but the removal of humans from the area is giving them room to flourish anyways. In other words, human activity can actually be more inhospitable for wild animals than radiation.

As study author, Jim Smith, a professor at the University of Portsmouth in the UK, puts it, “that’s not saying radiation is good for animals, but human habitation, occupation, agriculture, forestry is worse.”

In fact, researchers have found that the number of animals present in and around Chernobyl rival those found in uninhabited nature reserves. Wolves, deer, wild boar, and numerous other animals are now thriving in the exclusion zone that surrounds the now defunct nuclear reactor.

Wolves, in particular, are doing extremely well with the wolf population in the exclusion zone estimated to be 7 times higher than it is even in other protected areas. No, wolves aren’t thriving on radiation, but instead are enjoying such high numbers because hunters cannot access the area. Further, if wolves are doing well, that must mean their food source, such as deer and boar, are also doing well.

Fukushima also overgrowing with wildlife

Only the more recent disaster at the Fukushima Plant in Japan, which was caused by the earthquake-tsunami double punch in 2011, can rival the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Interestingly, the Fukushima exclusion zone is also teeming with wildlife.

Stunning images of fields of cars overgrowing with weeds and other instances of nature quickly overtaking human habitats and structures, are already emerging. Fukushima is surrounded by a 12.5 mile exclusion zone, though some people have been able to return to their homes.

Unlike their counterparts in Ukraine, the Japanese are not willing to simply let the land go to waste. Instead, a crew of up to 20,000 workers has been working to reclaim the land, digging up contaminated soil, scrubbing houses and other structures, and otherwise trying to rid the area of radiation. So far, their efforts seem to be paying off with some people able to turn to their homes.

Japan’s efforts are in stark contrast to authorities in Ukraine, who have all but abandoned Chernobyl.

Chernobyl is a ghost town

By and large, the animals are left to their own devices. Roughly 300 people still live in the area, however, having refused to leave. Most of those left behind are older women who are, quite frankly, entering the twilight of their life. It remains unclear how the radiation is affecting them, but as older people, they are less vulnerable to radiation. Children, in particular, are the most sensitive to radiation.

Besides these settlers, many people still work at the power plant, working to keep the radiation contained. Traveling into and out of the 1,000 square mile exclusion zone is like entering another country. Complete with a border guard, passports and permission are needed before anyone can enter.

Want to see some of the chernobyl ruins? Check out this video.

Chernobyl accident overview

The Chernobyl incident was one of the worst man-made disasters in history. On April 26, 1986 the Chernobyl nuclear plant’s reactor number 4 experienced a massive power increase, causing the reactor core to explode. Experts assert that the accident was caused by both a flawed reactor design, and insufficiently trained and skilled workers. Whatever the cause, radiation quickly flooded into the surrounding area and those animals unable to escape subsequently died. Radiation also spread across Europe and even the world.

The explosion happened while workers were attempting to test an emergency cool down procedure. Once the explosion occurred, massive amounts of radiation leaked out into the surrounding atmosphere. In total, at least 50 people died directly because of the reactor explosion, and countless more were sickened by it. The total attributable death toll is believed to be much higher.

Reactor number 4 is now contained in a massive “sarcophagus” that was quickly constructed of metal and cement to contain the radiation. The amount of radiation built up inside of the structure has now reached immensely dangerous levels, yet the sarcophagus itself is slowly falling apart. The Ukrainian government is currently looking to build a new container for the reactor.

You can still visit Chernobyl

While Chernobyl will not be habitable for humans for at least 20,000 years, according to current estimates, brief exposure to the higher than normal radiation, as is found in the area, is not considered to be overly harmful. In fact, the Ukrainian government even allows guided tours through the Chernobyl exclusion zone. In many ways, Chernobyl might offer the best opportunity to see what life was once like under the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, of which Ukraine was once a part.

If you’d like to go on a guided tour, but don’t want to risk entering a radioactive zone, you can check out the video below.

 

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Re: Fukujima Chernobyl nuclear zone proved that planet earth will heal as man been ri

Just nuke away man in all cities and planet earth ASAP will be healing itself ASAP. Not possible when too late when damages by man has gone too far and all are ruined, then everything can only extinct.

 

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Re: Fukujima Chernobyl nuclear zone proved that planet earth will heal as man been ri

It is beyond any doubt that planet earth and it's natural resources and live are being fucked solely and surely by man's modern civilization. It wasn't bad in entire history of man dozens of centuries all along, until the modern time. it was OK for thousands of years until the recent 1 or 2 centuries. Today's industrialization and silly humanity ideas are the prime factors. Before these mistakes man eliminates and brutalized one another, enslaves, annihilate one another, no equality, no peace, no humanity, no democracy, no freedom. Therefore earth and man's existence was able to balance. Today's mistake is to preserve and pamper everyone regardlessly and blindly, without considering the amount of resources needed, or weather planet earth can last under such kind of exploitations. Man fucked the planet dead, to ask for their own extinction, this is beyond doubt.

 

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Re: Fukujima Chernobyl nuclear zone proved that planet earth will heal as man been ri

http://www.todayonline.com/world/chernobyl-zone-turns-testbed-natures-rebound


Chernobyl zone turns into testbed for Nature’s rebound
A view of the abandoned city of Pripyat is seen near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine April 22, 2016. Photo: Reuters
A containment shelter for the damaged fourth reactor (L) and the New Safe Confinement structure (R) at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Photo: Reuters
A view of the abandoned city of Pripyat is seen near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine April 22, 2016. Photo: Reuters
A hare sits on an empty road at the 30km exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the abandoned village of Radin, Belarus, March 12, 2016. Photo: Reuters
An otter swims in a channel at the 30km exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the abandoned village of Pogonnoe, Belarus, March 13, 2016. Photo: Reuters

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Published: 10:17 PM, April 26, 2016
Updated: 12:43 AM, April 27, 2016

CHERNOBYL (Ukraine) — What happens when the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident is left all but abandoned for nearly 30 years?

In the case of Chernobyl, it becomes a unique chance to see how wildlife recovers in what is a giant nature reserve, bereft of humans but tainted by radiation.
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Former Chernobyl residents take a bittersweet visit home
April 26

“When the people left, nature returned,” Mr Denys Vyshnevskiy, a biologist in Chernobyl’s so-called exclusion zone, told AFP during a visit, while nearby a herd of wild horses nosed around for food.

Some may wonder how the northern edge of the former Soviet nation, where a part of the station exploded on April 26, 1986, spewing toxic clouds that reached from Sweden to Greece, could host any life forms at all.

About 30 courageous and atrociously under-protected rescuers died in the weeks it took to control the fourth reactor’s meltdown and a 2,800-square-kilometre-wide (1,100-square-mile-wide) exclusion zone was set up.

The World Health Organization estimated in 2005 that 4,000 people could eventually die from radiation-related illnesses, a figure that Greenpeace slammed as a gross underestimate.

The region and its 300 or so mostly elderly inhabitants remains far from safe, with radiation readings within 10 kilometres of the plant reaching 1,700 nanosieverts per hour — 10 to 35 times the normal background levels observed in the United States.

Today’s animals in the exclusion may have shorter lifespans and produce fewer offspring, but their numbers and varieties are growing at rates unseen since long before the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse, says Mr Vyshnevskiy.

“Radiation is always here and it has its negative impact,” said Vyshnevskiy.

“But it is not as significant as the absence of human intervention.”



ENVIRONMENTAL RENAISSANCE?

About 130,000 people were rushed from the region in the disaster’s wake, with signs of former existence like children’s sandpits and swings still standing and collecting snow in the winter, as if frozen in time.

With the quick death of the local Red Forest — 10 square kilometres of pines that wilted from the radiation that permeated the ground — various birds, rodents and insects were lost.

Over time, the forest was cut down and a new, healthy one sprung up in its place.

The exclusion zone was placed under military surveillance to keep away the homesick for their own safety, and while a few hundred pension-aged people slipped back in over the decades, curious things slowly began to emerge in nature.

On the one hand, species dependent on human crops and waste products vanished: white storks, sparrows and pigeons fell silent and no longer filled the skies.

Yet on the other, indigenous species that flourished in the lush flora long before the catastrophe, reappeared.

These include elks, wolves, bears, lynxes, white-tailed eagles and many others.

One of the more brazen experiments came in 1990, when a handful of endangered Dzungarian horses were brought in to see if they would take root. They did so with relish, and about a hundred of them now graze the untended fields.

For Vyshnevskiy, the rebound is an “environmental renaissance”.

Other scientists, though, are more cautious.

Prof Tim Mousseau, a professor of biological sciences at the University of South Carolina at Columbia, heads a team that has been conducting long-term research into biodiversity at Chernobyl — a mission that they are also carrying out in the zone around Fukushima in Japan.

In a phone interview with AFP, Prof Mousseau said that the range of species, the number of animals and their survivability in Chernobyl is less than what would be expected in a non-contaminated area — especially in “hotspots” where radiation is high.

Butterflies and birds in particular seem to have been affected most, apparently because of susceptibility on a key chromosome, he said.

“When you put a fence around an area, it’s clear that some animals will have an opportunity to expand, but because they are visible, it doesn’t mean that they have increased as much as they should have, or that you have the biodiversity that you would normally have,” Prof Mousseau said.

He added in an email: “Overall, in almost all cases, there is a clear signal of the negative effects of radiation on wild populations. Even the cuckoo’s call is affected.”



DISASTER’S SOLE POSITIVE OUTCOME

Ms Maryna Shkvyrya, a researcher at the Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology, Ukraine’s oldest in the field, also urges prudence to those tempted to idealise the exclusion zone as a nature reserve.

The zone is “unique... but not exactly a paradise for the animals nor an oasis”, Ms Shkvyrya said.

“There are lots of people working on the power plant. There are tourists, stalkers and poachers.”

Mr Vyshnevskiy says that the biodiversity benefits will rise with time. When the woods sprawl even wider across the empty fields, forest fauna and flora will multiply, he predicts.

“There is a huge contrast between Chernobyl just before the catastrophe and Chernobyl 30 years after,” said Mr Vyshnevskiy.

“These animals are probably the only positive outcome of the terrible catastrophe we had”. AFP

 

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Re: Fukujima Chernobyl nuclear zone proved that planet earth will heal as man been ri

Crucial Vital Hope for a future. Nuke away majority of man ASAP and there is still a possible future for tiny human population and Balanced Planet Earth.