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It’s been close to 40 years since more than 100,000 people were evacuated from the area surrounding Chernobyl, and while that region is still considered inhospitable to human beings, the wolves that call it home have apparently developed a very intriguing trait.
As you likely know, the meltdown that struck Chernobyl in 1986 is considered the worst incident in the history of nuclear energy due to the ramifications that could’ve been much, much worse if the Soviets hadn’t scrambled to address the deadly threats that stemmed from their own bureaucratic incompetence.
The official death toll for the disaster sits at 30 due to people who perished after being exposed to lethal levels of radiation, although it is believed thousands more have or will eventually pass away from cancer that can be traced back to the fallout of what unfolded at the power plant.
Ukraine is still home to a 1,000-square-mile area known as the “Exclusion Zone” that humans will be unable to inhabit for at least 3,000 years, and while there was a mass culling of animals in the region following the disaster, plenty of wildlife eventually made its way back into the impacted woodlands.
That includes the “mutant” wolves that have attracted the interest of scientists who’ve spent decades conducting Chernobyl-adjacent research—including Cara Love, an evolutionary biologist at Princeton who was part of a team that managed to affix collars to the animals in 2014 to measure the levels of radiation they’re exposed to.
According to Sky News, the data shows the wolves are subjected to 11.28 millirem of radiation on a daily basis, which the outlet notes is six times the level that is deemed safe for humans. You might assume that would result in a proliferation of cancer in the population, but it appears the animals have adapted to their hostile environment.
Love said her research shows the wolves have not only developed “altered immune systems similar to cancer patients undergoing radiation treatment” but that blood tests she and her team have run have detected genetic mutations that appear to reduce the risk of cancer.
There’s hope that they’ll be able to use the evidence they’ve obtained to further work concerning cancer prevention and treatment in humans, so it’s good to hear something positive could possibly come out of an otherwise disastrous situation.