Photo traps show animals returning to the Chernobyl zone

A new study has shown that the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and the neighbouring Drevlyansky Reserve now have a particularly high diversity of large mammals. Photo traps have recorded moose, roe deer, red deer, wild boar, wolves, lynx, foxes, raccoon dogs, badgers and Przewalski's horses.

For many large animals, the absence of hunting, ploughing, development and the constant presence of humans has proved to be a powerful recovery factor. The 2025 review emphasises the dual picture: animals in the zone persist and return, but radiation is still associated with DNA damage, mutations and other biological risks.

Details

The authors of the new paper studied the north of Ukraine, an area of about 60,000 square kilometres. They compared several types of places: the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, the neighbouring Drevlyansky Reserve, other reserves and national parks in Polesie, and areas without protected status.

A total of 174 camera traps were used for observations. These are cameras that automatically switch on when an animal moves. This method is especially useful for cautious and nocturnal species: lynxes, wolves, wild boars and ungulates are rarely seen by humans, but regularly leave a "trace" on the cameras.

According to the study, the richest picture was found in the areas where human presence is most restricted: the Chernobyl zone and the Drevlyansky Reserve. Not only common species, but also more cautious animals that need large, quiet spaces were recorded more often there.

These included Eurasian Lynx, Grey Wolf, Red Deer and Przewalski's Horse. The latter is particularly prominent in the Chernobyl story: these wild horses were introduced to the zone in the late 1990s, and have since become one of the symbols of the animals' return to the abandoned landscape.

The study also showed an important difference between large areas and small protected areas. Small parks did not always give large mammals enough space and protection. Sometimes they differed little from unprotected land in terms of the number of animals. This is an important finding: animals need not just a formal 'park' sign, but real reduced disturbance, connected woodlands, wetlands and movement corridors.

Earlier work has provided a similar picture. For example, a study in Redwood Forest with 21 camera traps recorded 14 mammal species; the number of species and the number of camera triggers for key species did not change with the estimated radiation dose in this dataset. The authors emphasised that such data are important both for studying the effects of radiation and for understanding the feralisation of a large abandoned area.

Even earlier long-term surveys had shown that the Chernobyl zone had developed a large mammal community: moose, roe deer, deer and wild boar numbers were comparable to uncontaminated reserves in the region, and wolves were significantly more abundant.

Why it matters

The Chernobyl zone shows how strong a factor for wildlife humans remain. It's not just pollution or climate that is dangerous to the big animals, but also roads, hunting, farming, logging, noise, light, development and constant disturbance.

When all of these are almost gone, nature quickly takes over the vacant space. Abandoned fields become meadows and young forests, shelters appear in old villages, swamps and forests knit together again into a mosaic. For moose, deer, wolves and lynx, this means more places to feed, breed and move.

Background

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident occurred on 26 April 1986. After the explosion and fire, radioactive contamination affected large areas of Ukraine, Belarus and other parts of Europe. An exclusion zone was created around the plant, from where people were evacuated and where normal economic activities were severely restricted.

Over time, the Ukrainian and Belarusian parts of this territory became one of the largest de facto wilderness areas in Europe. In the Belarusian part, the Polessky State Radiation-Ecological Reserve was established as early as 1988, and in Ukraine, the Chernobyl Radiation-Ecological Biosphere Reserve was established in 2016. Together, these areas include forests, swamps, rivers, lakes, abandoned fields and former settlements.

For scientists, Chernobyl has become a rare example of a large area where it is possible to watch nature evolve with almost no permanent human presence, but under the influence of chronic contamination.

Source

Svitlana Kudrenko et al, "The Chornobyl Exclusion Zone as a wildlife refuge: restricted human access shaped mammal recolonisation", Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2026.

Additional tables and figures related to this work are already available in the Royal Society's public materials.