Nearly 30 Years After Chernobyl Disaster, Wildlife Returns to the Area

Almost 30 years after a horrific accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant released massive amounts of radiation and became one of the world's worst nuclear catastrophes, the long-abandoned site has some new inhabitants: New research finds that many native wildlife species are once again finding refuge in the human-free Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine. Scientists found that the numbers of moose, roe deer, red deer and wild boar living in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone — a roughly 1,000-square-mile (2,600 square kilometers) designated area of contamination around the disaster site — are similar to the animals' population numbers in nearby uncontaminated nature reserves. In fact, they noted that wolf census data in the area has a population seven times greater than populations in nearby reserves.