What’s up with the mutant wolves of Chernobyl?

The city Pripyat remains a ghost town, 38 years after the nuclear accident that happened on this day, April 26, 1986. Pripyat is located on the territory of Ukraine, next to the Belarus-Ukraine border and was the ninth nuclear “hotbed” for workers in the Soviet Union in order to serve the nearby Chernobyl power station located in the smaller town of the same name.

From the evacuation onwards, on the afternoon of April 27, 1986, that is, the day after the disaster, everything is deserted. According to research the city and the wider area will be habitable again after the present century, although few residents, about 100 elderly people, have returned to their former homes in the area.

Two of the Chernobyl workers died on the spot from the accident that occurred during a safety test.

Over the next four months, 28 firefighters who rushed to the scene died from radiation exposure and heat burns. An additional 19 deaths were also reported through 2004. Percentage increases in cancers were over 15% in the populations who were exposed to the radiation, with thousands of cancer and leukemia deaths linked to the events.

However, Greenpeace estimated the number of deaths at 100,000 in 2006 caused by the disaster.

How the explosion was announced in Greece by ERT:

The radioactive cloud passed over our country. Based on scientific research, it seems that in Greece there has been an increase in the rare infant leukemia, while in the same period a steep increase in abortions was observed due to the fear of effects on fetuses.

Nearly four decades later, the remnants of the disaster still exist. A 30km safety zone around Chernobyl warns would-be visitors, that is, what the Soviet Union of the time did not do to protect millions of citizens not only in Ukraine, but also in the surrounding countries.

The Soviet authorities tried to cover up the accident and Mikhail Gorbachev only publicly intervened on the matter on May 14, 1986. Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, however, private visits were made to the Pripyat and Chernobyl area from Kiev, with specific instructions and precautions.

It is characteristic that according to Greenpeace data, approximately 5 million people still live in areas exposed to radioactivity. The amount of radioactivity released into the atmosphere, it is almost 200 times greater than the radioactivity released by the two atomic bombs of Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined.

Radioactive rain has reached Ireland. Ukraine, Belarus and Russia were the most affected countries, absorbing 63% of the pollution from the accident.

THE ANIMALS “OCCURED” THE CITY

Since its inhabitants left Pripyat and Chernobyl due to high levels of radioactivity, wolves, wild horses, beavers, wild boars and other animals “inhabit” the cities and the surrounding forests. In many of them, higher mortality rates, increased genetic mutations and low birth rates were observed.

In recent years, in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ), a perimeter of about 1,000 square miles around the nuclear power plant, it becomes one of the largest scientific experiments in the world to investigate the long-term effects of ionizing radiation.

In 2016, a study found that eastern tree frogs (Hyla orientalis) living in the exclusion zone exhibit different characteristics than their neighboring cousins, and in 2023, another study discovered distinct genetic differences between Chernobyl dogs and dogs living 10 miles away away from the area. The above data, however, must be analyzed further.

Alongside, Princeton University scientists began to explore another paradoxical phenomenon involving CEZ mammals, namely the unexpectedly thriving wolf population which contrasts with what happens to other animals in the area. The results of their ten-year study were presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology last January.

The analysis of of wolves in the CEZ is of particular interest as it concerns animals at the top of the food chain. These are organisms that are in a privileged position in an ecosystem, but when that ecosystem is overwhelmed by radiation, these animals are forced to eat prey and plants that have been exposed to radiation.

AN UNPRECEDENTED SCIENTIFIC OPPORTUNITY

Researcher Cara Love told NPR that wolf populations in the CEZ are actually seven times larger than those living in protected wildlife areas in neighboring Belarus.

“Gray wolves offer us a really interesting opportunity to be able to understand the effects of chronic, multigenerational exposure to ionizing radiation,” said research biologist Campbell-Stanton in an interview with NPR.

Ten years ago, in 2014 specifically, the team of biologists from Princeton fitted specific wolves with collars with radiation dosimeters with built-in GPS; in an effort to understand the population’s response to cancer-causing radiation. They discovered that the gray wolves in question were constantly exposed in radiation six times higher (11.28 millirem radiation) than the legal limit for humans.

The researchers’ theory is that these wolves experience a kind of rapid natural selection, likely caused by the equally rapid change in their environment. Specifically, some wolves within the CEZ had genes that made them more resistant to cancer than other wolves. In that case, they either did not develop cancer, or were less affected from him as to their health.

The most resilient wolves were shown to pass these genes on to a future generation.

Love found during her study that the mutant wolves have “changed” their immune systems in a manner similar to that of cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy.

Genes and the absence of humans

“We found that the fastest growing areas [γονιδιώματος] of wolves within the Chernobyl zone are in and around genes that we know play a role in the immune response to cancer or the anti-tumor immune response in mammals,” Campbell-Staton added.

“We’ve now begun to work with biologists who study human cancer and related companies to help us interpret these data and then try to understand whether there is that could provide new therapeutic targets for the treatment of cancer in humans”, he added.

Love added that in the area scholars have explored many different parasite and pathogen infections in this wolf population compared to reference populations, trying to compare disease rates.

The research could be key to examining how gene mutations in humans might be able to increase the chances of surviving cancer. Accordingly, in the “target” of the investigation the dogs of the area are also expected to be raised in terms of their resistance to radioactivity and its effects.

While the data shows a clear genetic cause behind the resistance of CEZ wolves to cancer; o Campbell-Stanton reported that these wolves are free from the greatest biological pressure they could know: That is, the man himself.

In any case, the Princeton team emphasizes that Chernobyl currently offers an unprecedented scientific opportunity for humanity. Unfortunately, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has suspended further investigations.