Abstract
This chapter “Wildlife in the Exclusion Zone in Chernobyl” explores the state of wildlife in Chernobyl three decades after the nuclear disaster, as a comparative reference for the wildlife in Fukushima in the near future. Wildlife appears to be thriving in Chernobyl, which is evidenced by the rebound of the population of gray wolves that are the top predators in the area. However, scientific studies of the population thus far are inconclusive regarding the effects of low-level, long-term radiation on their health. The wildlife in Chernobyl also gives insight into the possibility of rewilding projects in Fukushima and elsewhere.
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Notes
- 1.
“Cherunobuiri genshiryoku hatsudensho jiko no gaiyō” (Summary of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station Accident), February 7, 2004, http://www.rist.or.jp/atomica/data/dat_detail.php?Title_No=02-07-04-11; Hoshi Hiroshi, Misuterareta inochi o sukue! Part 2 (Save Lives That Were Abandoned! Part 2), Tokyo: Shakai-hihyōsha, 2013, 72, 77, 158.
- 2.
“Radioactive Wolves,” PBS (TV documentary), October 19, 2011, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/radioactive-wolves-introduction/7108/.
- 3.
Ibid.
- 4.
Ibid.
- 5.
Ibid.; Ralph Maughan, “Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Site Becomes a Wildlife Area, including Over a Hundred Wolves (with Updates),” December 31, 2012, http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2012/12/31/chernobyl-wildlife/.
- 6.
Ibid. (both).
- 7.
“Radioactive Wolves.”
- 8.
Ibid.
- 9.
Maughan; The Wildlife News, September 27, 2016, http://www.thewildlifenews.com/about/.
- 10.
Maughan.
- 11.
Mary Mycio, “Do Animals in Chernobyl’s Fallout Zone Glow?,” January 2013, http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/nuclear_power/2013/01/wildlife_in_chernobyl_debate_over_muations_and_populations_of_plants_and.html.
- 12.
Ibid.
- 13.
Ibid.
- 14.
“At Chernobyl, Hints of Nature’s Adaptation,” New York Times, May 4, 2014.
- 15.
“Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Other Hot Places,” March 11, 2013, http://www.totalwebcasting.com/tamdata/Documents/hcf/20130311-1/Mousseau-NYAM-Caldicott-edited.pdf.
- 16.
Ibid.
- 17.
Ibid.; “At Chernobyl, Hints of Nature’s Adaptation.”
- 18.
Hannah Osborne, “Chernobyl Disaster: How Wildlife in the Exclusion Zone Is Really Faring After 30 Years of Radiation Exposure,” April 23, 2016, http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/chernobyl-disaster-anniversary-how-wildlife-exclusion-zone-really-faring-30-years-1556276.
- 19.
Kubota Masahide, “Fukushima daiichi genshiryoku hatsudensho jiko to dōbutsu” (Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Accident and Animals), Dōbutsu bungaku, Vol. 80, No. 1, Summer 2014, 13–14.
- 20.
Ibid., 14.
- 21.
Ibid., 14–15.
- 22.
Ibid., 16.
- 23.
Ibid., 16.
- 24.
Ibid., 16–17.
- 25.
Ibid., 17.
- 26.
Ibid., 17; “The Fukushima Nuclear Accident and the Pale Grass Blue Butterfly: Evaluating Biological Effects of Long-Term Low-Dose Exposures,” August 2013, http://bmcevolbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2148-13-168.
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Itoh, M. (2018). Wildlife in the Exclusion Zone in Chernobyl. In: Animals and the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster. The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70757-0_11
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