Chernobyl and Other Places Where Animals Thrive Without People
Some disaster zones end up as accidental nature reserves: places where animals survive because humans aren't allowed in.
KIEV, UkraineWar, nuclear accidents, and poverty rarely have a silver lining, but in Chernobyl and a handful of other places around the world, catastrophes for human populations have become a boon for wildlife.
In places plagued by guerrilla warfare, nuclear fallout, and chemical weapons, wild animals have rebounded in great numbers on land we have made too polluted—or too dangerous—for human habitation.
Animal and plant life are coming back strong in the Chernobyl nuclear disaster zone, which has been undisturbed by humans for nearly 30 years said Jim Smith, an environmental scientist and author of a new study of life near Chernobyl released on Monday.
“It’s much like the landscape of the rest of that area of Ukraine and Belarus, but without the
