Topic: Chernobyl: At site of world's worst nuclear disaster, the animals have returned
By: Cell Press
Date: October 5, 2015
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151005132553.htm
Summary
In 1986, after a fire and explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant released radioactive particles into the air, thousands of people left the area, never to return. Now, researchers have found that the Chernobyl site looks less like a disaster zone and more like a nature preserve, teeming with elk, roe deer, red deer, wild boar, and wolves. Data also reveals rising trends in the abundance of elk, roe deer, and wild boar from 1 to 10 years after the accident and now showing that mammal populations have bounced back. In fact, the number of wolves living in and around the Chernobyl site is more than seven times greater than can be found in those nature reserves.
A relatively dedicated individual who is very involved replies, "I've been working, studying, and taking photos of the wonderful wildlife in the Chernobyl area for over 20 years and am very pleased our work is reaching an international scientific audience," says Tatiana Deryabina from the Polessye State Radioecological Reserve in Belarus, a few miles from the site of the Chernobyl accident. The tremendous amounts of increase in the populations of mammals in the habitat has illustrated and pave the way to make us realize the resilience of wildlife when human presence is removed out of the equation. Jim Smith of the University of Portsmouth in the UK explains how humans are a huge factor for contributing major problems to the environment and activities like hunting, farming, and forestry, are a lot worse than the explosion that happened in Chernobyl site.
Reflection
I was really surprised because it is so similar to the event at Mt. Saint Helens of the eruption. These two correlates each other on the way life is returned after a brutal disaster to the living things and its habitat. It also utilizes the meaning of secondary succession in both of these topics. I like how it really shows that an environment can be at peace and more importantly, stable, when there are no humans around to interfere which also reminds me of the story on "An Earth Without People".
Date: October 5, 2015
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151005132553.htm
Summary
In 1986, after a fire and explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant released radioactive particles into the air, thousands of people left the area, never to return. Now, researchers have found that the Chernobyl site looks less like a disaster zone and more like a nature preserve, teeming with elk, roe deer, red deer, wild boar, and wolves. Data also reveals rising trends in the abundance of elk, roe deer, and wild boar from 1 to 10 years after the accident and now showing that mammal populations have bounced back. In fact, the number of wolves living in and around the Chernobyl site is more than seven times greater than can be found in those nature reserves.
A relatively dedicated individual who is very involved replies, "I've been working, studying, and taking photos of the wonderful wildlife in the Chernobyl area for over 20 years and am very pleased our work is reaching an international scientific audience," says Tatiana Deryabina from the Polessye State Radioecological Reserve in Belarus, a few miles from the site of the Chernobyl accident. The tremendous amounts of increase in the populations of mammals in the habitat has illustrated and pave the way to make us realize the resilience of wildlife when human presence is removed out of the equation. Jim Smith of the University of Portsmouth in the UK explains how humans are a huge factor for contributing major problems to the environment and activities like hunting, farming, and forestry, are a lot worse than the explosion that happened in Chernobyl site.
Reflection
I was really surprised because it is so similar to the event at Mt. Saint Helens of the eruption. These two correlates each other on the way life is returned after a brutal disaster to the living things and its habitat. It also utilizes the meaning of secondary succession in both of these topics. I like how it really shows that an environment can be at peace and more importantly, stable, when there are no humans around to interfere which also reminds me of the story on "An Earth Without People".