Almost 40 years ago, reactor number four exploded at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Since then, the surrounding area has become, to the surprise of many, one of Europe’s largest nature reserves. Over the last eight years, we have been working to find out how this infamous environmental disaster has affected the area’s fauna.
Radiation can damage cells and, with high exposure, can kill organisms. However, Chernobyl’s situation has changed a lot since the accident – today, only 10 % of the radiation released in 1986 remains, and the most dangerous isotopes, such as iodine, disappeared many years ago.
