Not so much 
 
 When the Chernobyl nuclear power plant melted down in 1986, more than 116,000 people were permanently relocated from a contaminated area comprising 4200 km2, an area that was later designated the Chernobyl exclusion zone. "I've been working, studying, and taking photos of the wonderful wildlife in the Chernobyl area for over 20 years and am very pleased our work is reaching an international scientific audience," says Tatiana Deryabina from the Polessye State Radioecological Reserve in Belarus, a few miles from the site of the Chernobyl accident. Deryabina et al/Current Biology 2015 
 
 The team tested three fundamental hypotheses concerning the resilience of wildlife to the world’s worst nuclear accident: 
 
 Hypothesis 1: densities of mammals were suppressed due to the levels of radioactive contamination in the Chernobyl exclusion zone Hypothesis 2: densities of large mammals were suppressed at PSRER compared with those in four uncontaminated nature reserves in Belarus 
 
 Hypothesis 3: densities of large mammals declined between 1 and 10 years after the accident 
 
 To test these hypotheses, trained staff conducted wildlife snow track censuses between 2008 and 2010 along 35 permanent track survey routes (total combined length of 315 km with an average track length of 9 km) (doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2012.10.025). As you can see, the empirical data show no evidence of long-term radiation damage to the large mammal populations at Chernobyl, and thus, the evidence does not support any of the three hypotheses being tested (Figure 1): 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Figure 1. Image copyright Victoria Gill/BBC Image caption In Pripyat, the largest town in the exclusion zone, it is difficult to tell where the town ends and the wilderness begins 
 
 In their study of mammal tracks, however, Prof Smith and his colleagues did compare the abundance of animals in different areas of the exclusion zone. Helicopter survey data also reveal rising trends in the abundance of elk, roe deer, and wild boar from 1 to 10 years after the accident. Deryabina et al/Current Biology 2015 
 
 In fact, increases in elk (moose) and wild boar populations in the Chernobyl exclusion zone occurred in the early 1990s, when these species’ populations were undergoing a rapid decline in former Soviet Union countries due to increased rural poverty and weakened wildlife management. The relative abundance of elk, roe deer, red deer, and wild boar within the exclusion zone are now similar to those in four uncontaminated nature reserves in the region, the researchers report. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Wolves were seven times more abundant in the Chernobyl exclusion zone site than in nearby uncontaminated nature reserves. "These results demonstrate for the first time that, regardless of potential radiation effects on individual animals, the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone supports an abundant mammal community after nearly three decades of chronic radiation exposure," the researchers conclude. “It’s very likely that wildlife numbers at Chernobyl are much higher than they were before the accident,” said co-author Jim Smith, a Professor of Environmental Science at the University of Portsmouth, in a press release. This was due to a large increase in wolves, which are particularly fond of dining on wild boar, combined with an outbreak of African swine fever. Humans are more damaging to wildlife and ecosystems than is radiation poisoning 
 
 “This study is a very positive move forward in conducting research concerning the potential health and environmental impacts of nuclear accidents”, said population biologist Timothy Mousseau, a Professor in the Biology Department at the University of South Carolina, who was not part of this study. Much more research on this and related questions are desperately needed”, said Professor Mousseau in email. “This doesn’t mean radiation is good for wildlife, just that the effects of human habitation, including hunting, farming, and forestry, are a lot worse,” said Professor Smith. Prof Smith attributed this to the lack of hunting in the exclusion zone.
– What happens when humans abandon 1,600 square miles because of radioactivity? Wildlife runs rampant, apparently. A new study on animals in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone shows what once looked something like a wasteland is now packed with elk, roe deer, red deer, wild boar, and wolves. Researchers conducted aerial surveys in the zone during winter months between 1987—a year after the Chernobyl disaster—and 1997 and estimated animal populations based on tracks in the snow, reports the Guardian. They found the number of animals in the area was actually on par with those in four uncontaminated nature reserves nearby; but the number of wolves was more than seven times greater than in reserves. The numbers of elk, roe deer, and wild boar also jumped at a time when elk and wild boar populations were sliding elsewhere in the former Soviet Union. "It's very likely that wildlife numbers at Chernobyl are much higher than they were before the accident," a researcher says in a release. "This doesn't mean radiation is good for wildlife, just that the effects of human habitation, including hunting, farming, and forestry, are a lot worse." But another researcher who has studied birds in the zone tells the BBC the research "only applies to large mammals under hunting pressure, rather than the vast majority of animals—most birds, small mammals, and insects—that are not directly influenced by human habitation." And since the study didn't look at radiation exposure, it "does not address the issue of whether radiation has effects on reproduction, survival, longevity, or general health of the animals surveyed." While scientists found Chernobyl's wild boar population dipped in 1993, they say hungry wolves and a disease outbreak were to blame. (There's something wrong with Chernobyl's forests.)