Chernobyl (credit: Carl Montgomery)
More research has been published which indicates that the wildlife of Chernobyl is thriving and recovering from the devastating nuclear accident. This study found that the aquatic life of the regions lakes are doing well. Life is not just doing well it’s flourishing.
The study found that there was no correlation between the levels of contamination of the lake and levels of biodiversity found. The greatest diversity was even found in the lake with the highest levels of radioactive pollution. Lake Glubokoye which is found to the north of the power plant and was the most polluted of the lakes studied had the highest number of species.
Aquatic invertebrates thriving in lakes.
Dr John Murphy from the Queen Mary University of London, one of the 3 authors of the study, said: ”Our study found no evidence that radioactive contamination from the Chernobyl accident has had a direct influence on the lakes’ aquatic invertebrates. We discovered over 230 species some of which are rare and endangered and even species that are thought to be particularly susceptible to high levels of radioactive contamination, such as freshwater snails, showed no response.
“This indicates that, twenty five years on, the radiation has not had a perceptible affect on the diversity and abundance of the region’s lake invertebrates.”
The other authors were Dr Jim Smith from the University of Portsmouth and Dr Liubov Nagorskaya of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. The study was undertaken over the course of 2 years and the findings were published in the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity.
During the course of their investigations they recorded over 230 different species of aquatic invertebrates. Not only did they find the more common invertebrates in the lakes but they also found threatened species and even discovered three species never recorded before in Belarus.
Dr. Smith stated that: ”Estimating the radiation dose to organisms inevitably involves a degree of uncertainty since their exact habitat is imprecise and varies with their life cycle. However even taking this into consideration, the results suggest that natural environmental factors, such as lake size, and hydrochemical factors are the main drivers of biodiversity in the lakes.”
The lakes that the researchers studied varied widely in their levels of contamination. Levels of radioactivity varied from near normal background levels of 0.1 microGrays per hour up to 300 times those levels.
Dispute over state of wildlife in Chernobyl.
It’s good to see some more studies coming out about wildlife in the exclusion zone because studies are quite limited at the moment. Most of the studies published in English comes from quite a small clique of researchers headed up by Dr Mousseau and Dr Moller who have consistently published papers saying how bad things are in the exclusion zone. they claim that wildlife has not bounced back in the contaminated areas and claims of wildlife thriving are just anecdotal and do not stand up to close scrutiny.
One the other side local researchers such as Dr Gashchak who have studied local condition right from the start and say that wildlife has overcome the pollution and is thriving in the park. They dispute the claims made by Mousseau and Moller and question the motives behind their interpretations. Gashchak did work with the other two sicentists on a study but disputed their conclusions and asked for his name to be removed from the paper. Mousseau and Moller refused to remove his name from publication and Gashchak has not worked with the pair since.
This is not the only time the Mousseau and Moller have upset local researchers. A more recent publication of theirs on the brain size of birds in the exclusion zone involved work with a local researcher called Igor Chizhevsky. They published the paper with his name as a co-author without even providing Chizhevsky with a draft copy before publication. Chizhevsky disputes whether a 5% reduction in brain size that Mousseau and Moller claimed could be statistically provable.
Mousseau and Moller certainly gets media attention in the west for their work, but that’s hardly surprising. The mass media do like scare stories and stories of doom and gloom – it sells papers. If we are to find out what is really happening in the Chernobyl exclusion zone then we need studies by a lot of different research teams so that those with a personal or political slant on the situation are much less influential.
More studies needed to discover true picture of Chernobyl.
After Fukushima what we need is real unbiased science to see what is happening in Chernobyl so we can get an understanding of what could happen in Japan. The only way to get this unbiased science to to have a wide variety of researchers from different universities and bodies. As the number of surdies increase so the influence of one team or another will decrease and we’ll finally have a much clearer and honest picture of what is going on. May be the earthquake in Japan will make the funding available for many more studies in Chernobyl.
Read more.
Chernobyl: Confessions of a Reporter
Chernobyl: The Hidden Legacy
Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
