Date published: 2007/08/15
The BBC says:
The idea that the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant has created a wildlife haven is not scientifically justified, a study says.
Recent studies said rare species had thrived despite raised radiation levels as a result of no human activity.
But scientists who assessed the 1986 disaster's impact on birds said the ecological effects were "considerably greater than previously assumed".
...
The paper's authors, Anders Moller of University Pierre and Marie Curie, France, and Tim Mousseau from the University of South Carolina, US, said their research did not support the idea that low-level radiation was not affecting animals."Recent conclusions from the UN Chernobyl Forum and reports in the popular media concerning the effects of radiation from Chernobyl has left the impression that the exclusion zone is a thriving ecosystem, filled with an increasing number of rare species," they wrote.
Instead, they added: "Species richness, abundance and population density of breeding birds decreased with increasing levels of radiation."
The study, which recorded 1,570 birds from 57 species, found that the number of birds in the most contaminated areas declined by 66% compared with sites that had normal background radiation levels.
It also reported a decline of more than 50% in the range of species as radiation levels increase.
...
A recent paper published in the American Scientist magazine suggested that plants and animals were better off in the exclusion zone than specimens outside the 30km radius surrounding the site of the destroyed nuclear reactor.One of the paper's co-authors, Robert Baker from the Texas Tech University, said that the benefits for wildlife from the lack of human activity outweighed the risks of low-level radiation.
...
Professor Mousseau acknowledged Professor Baker's description: "It is true that the Chernobyl region gives the appearance of a thriving ecosystem because of its protection from other human activities."However, when you do controlled ecological studies, what we see is a very clear signature of negative effects of contamination on diversity and abundance of organisms.
"We clearly need to be applying scientific method to ecological studies before we can conclude, based on anecdotal observations, that there are no consequences."
Well this argument seems set to run for awhile. But the BBC singularly fails to specify whether the latest research is using pre-disaster or post-disaster wildlife levels as the baseline. You would obviously have expected the disaster to have wiped out lots of wildlife. But if it is now recovering faster than it would have given a similar starting point somewhere else, then Baker is more correct than Mousseau.
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