Chornobyl Wildlife, Nature is Mostly Thriving 40 Years Post-Accident

Radiation and the Russian forces are harmful, but overall, nature in northern Ukraine has proven itself resilient. Make us preferred on Google Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Bluesky Email Copy Copied Band of Przewalski's Horse eat and rest in a wildlife park in northern Ukraine, some 25 km (16 miles) south of the Chornobyl nuclear power station on April 23, 2026. The matriarch-leader is in the center foreground. (Image by Stefan Korshak / Kyiv Post) Content Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Bluesky Email Copy Copied Flip Make us preferred on Google In an unplanned win for Mother Nature, 40 years after the worst nuclear power accident in history, the thick forests and wetlands around the Chornobyl atomic power station are a haven for plant and wildlife, and probably Europe’s biggest and richest biosphere. The forests and marshes along the Pripyat River flowing through a 2,600 square kilometer (around 1,000 square miles), practically uninhabited Exclusion Zone centered on Chornobyl’s still lethally radioactive reactor number four now teems with rare European wildlife, some of it long extinct across the rest of the continent. Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official . Herds of bison, or Wisent, bands of Przewalski’s Horse, and sounders of European Boar roam the territory and in thinly-populated regions adjacent to it, along with Red Deer, Roe Deer, and elk [scientific binomial: Alces alces . In North America the same species is called “Moose.” – Ed.]. Healthy and expanding populations of brown bear, lynx and wolves hunt them. According to 2011 US government-sponsored research, the local beaver population “has exploded” in past decades, with “nature’s engineers” digging hundreds of kilometers of canals to link up the Pripyat and its drainage with streams and swamps feeding into the nearby Uzh, Teteriv and Dnipro Rivers; theoretically a territory the size of Kosovo. A fair estimate of beavers living in lodges they built from south-central Belarus into north-central Ukraine is probably over 120,000 of these animals. Other Topics of Interest Nuclear Risk Is Being Deliberately Used as a Tool of War Nuclear terrorism, not accident: Russia's deliberate weaponization of Ukraine's nuclear plants demands the world treat reactor safety as a global security priority. With laws on the books banning humans in both Belarus and Ukraine from hunting beavers, and depopulated territories in Belarus and Ukraine available to expand into, Chornobyl beavers collectively are among the most vigorous beaver populations on Earth, according to that study and data published by the group beavertrust.org. View of wetlands on the right/west bank of the Dnipro River, near the village of Strakholissya, some 30 km (19 miles) south-east of the Chornobyl nuclear power station on April 23, 2026. (Image by Stefan Korshak / Kyiv Post) A visit to the Ukrainian village of Laputki, on the Teteriv River 25 km (16 miles) due south of reactor number four, showed one possible direction for future beaver development. The only proper industry Laputki ever had, a dairy farm abandoned in 1986, is nearly overtaken by forest with healthy beech trees already growing through Soviet-era asphalt. Officially, the population is 21 people. Aside from family garden plots, and sheep and goats, around ten still-inhabited houses, give sign that humans still live in Laputki. The swamps around Laputki, which sits on a rise about 20-50 meters (66-164 feet) above the water table, are expanding and visibly encroaching into what were once farm fields. On a recent afternoon, warblers were out in force in the tall grass, along with a few nightingales or magpies, and possibly some finches. Ground heaves and water flow had, in forty years, turned the poured concrete road connecting Laputki to the rest of Ukraine into something a 4WD could pass only with difficulty. According to data compiled by the Kyiv region administration, in February and March invading Russian troops occupied Laputki and every other inhabited place across northern Ukraine. In larger towns to the south like Bucha and Irpin, there are hundreds of graves of civilians murdered by Russian troops trying to suppress Ukrainian resistance, and at a few battle sites Russian tank hulks still rust. But in villages near Chornobyl, there is little sign Kremlin troops had been there at all. Dilapidation and decay is visible everywhere, but it all seems to date back to the mid-1980s. Scientific study of the impact of radiation exposure from Chornobyl has been continuous and thorough, both during the Soviet era and as part of modern Ukraine. The general consensus is that flora and fauna in and around the zone have seen genetic instability, mutations, chromosomal issues as a result of low-level, long-term exposure to potential radiation, but it has been moderate. European Bison graze in a wildlife park in northern Ukraine on April 23, 2026, some 25 km south of the Chornobyl nuclear power station. (Image by Stefan Korshak / Kyiv Post) Most visible have been birth deformations and higher rates of cancer in birds able to reach the most-irradiated parts of the Chornobyl territory, like barn swallows and great tits. Albinism and atypical coloration have increased somewhat in amphibians and crustaceans, particularly those likely to dig through river bottoms and living in or near water downstream from the reactor. Studies have pointed to a layer of relatively radioactive dust and silt that was washed into river sediment shortly after the accident, and then covered by more sediment, making the river itself fairly safe unless the river mud is disturbed. Cara Love, an evolutionary biologist at Princeton University, in a 2024 study of Chornobyl wolves and dogs, found that canines living in the zone had evolved to be moderately more resistant to some forms of cancer. But the benefit from the near-total removal of people and cessation of human activity has, for nature in northern Ukraine, far outweighed the damage from radiation. In the village of Medvino, 20 km (12 miles) from the still-hot nuclear reactor remains, local entrepreneurs and naturalists in 2001 opened a wildlife conservation park that is now home to Ukraine’s biggest deer farm with about 500 individuals, along with the largest Wisent farm in Ukraine, with about 200 bulls, cows and calves. A park guide said herds are growing, but eco-tourism is not at the level it was before the Russian invasion. Looting by Russian soldiers damaged some properties in a village to the east called Strakholissya, a leafy place big enough to contain three food shops. Just to the north of Stakholissya, one of the few visible artifacts of Russia’s invasion into this part of Ukraine still stands – a bunker network dating back to 2022. Przewalski’s Horse matriarch observes her surroundings in a wildlife park in northern Ukraine on April 23, 2026, some 25 km south of the Chornobyl nuclear power station. (Image by Stefan Korshak / Kyiv Post) The thick log overhead protection and reinforced walls are still holding up but bushes and even small trees now growing on some fighting positions. An earth barrier piled up to slow traffic coming south from the border line of the Exclusion Zone, about 100 meters (around 330 feet) away, is slowly filling the road. Ukrainian National Guardsmen still man the road checkpoint. Sitting on a pretty, reedy bank of the Dnipro River Strakholissya still is sizable by local standards (reportedly 720+ residents) and in mid-April even some new home construction was in progress. Locals mostly moved about by bicycle and the village school was open. A cat near the village store was in no hurry. Housing in Strakholissya is a peculiar mix: mostly Soviet and early post-Soviet single-family homes built of brick and roofed with gray tiles, several still-inhabited log homes dating back at least to the mid-20th century, and about five or six walled residences with automatic gates, cameras, and rural-theme vacation homes behind the walls. Alina, a Strakholissya shopkeeper, said that the air is healthy and clean thanks to the river and lack of industry; and that tourists still visit in the summer, but not nearly so many as before the Russian invasion. Otherwise, the village is quiet and outsiders aren’t too common, she said. But 40 years ago, Strakholissya was a very important place, and the main housing base for the Chornobyl staff and emergency response crews following the nuclear accident. For the next three years, teams battling to build up the containment shelter around reactor number four lived in Strakholissya year-round. Bust of a Chornobyl “liquidator” at a Chornobyl memorial in the village Strakholissya, on the right/west bank of the Dnipro River, some 30 km south-east of the Chornobyl nuclear power station, on April 23, 2026. (Image by Stefan Korshak / Kyiv Post) An early 2000s memorial to the men and women who fought to contain the radiation and build the containment shelter stands in the north of the village. A memorial wall tells of the heroism and sacrifice of “liquidators” – as are called the men and women who fought to contain the Chornobyl radiation. In mid-April, forty years after the accident, the liquidator memorial in Strakholissya was freshly painted, the sidewalks were swept and the liquidators’ golden busts and the etchings of their names, had been thoroughly cleaned. In 2026, radiation in Strakholissya is usually accounted fully safe and lower than in a large city like Kyiv or Minsk, because concrete and steel absorb radiation and villages have less of it. Stefan Korshak is the Kyiv Post Senior Defense Correspondent. He is from Houston Texas, is a Yalie and since the mid-1990s has worked as correspondent/photographer for newswire, newspapers, television and radio. He has reported from five wars but most enjoys doing articles on wildlife and nature. You can read his weekly blog on the Russo-Ukraine War on Facebook, Substack and Medium. His new book on the 2022 Siege of Mariupol is available on Amazon UK and Amazon US .