Chernobyl Created the World's Rarest Dogs

within a few dozen hours after reactor 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded a two and a half kilometer long Convoy of over 1200 buses was rushing forty seven thousand people out of the town of pripyat where everyone working at the power station two miles away was living scientists engineers administrators and their families took on these buses only what they could carry and left everything not absolutely essential behind they were told they'd be able to return to their homes in just a day or two but no one ever did tragically pets fell into this non-essential category cats dogs and other companions were left behind to fend for themselves any Wilderness is Harsh and a radioactive one especially so most of these abandoned pets did not survive but incredibly the dogs did so successfully in fact that Liquidators from the Soviet Union tried culling them to control their numbers but they survived that too over the next 35 years a community of canines would arise and Thrive within the 30 kilometer radius around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant known as the exclusion Zone today hundreds of wild dogs roamed chernobyl's still radioactive Woods descendants of house pets left behind in the aftermath of the world's worst nuclear disaster and you can help them this is the true story of sobakitonoblia the dogs of Chernobyl directly below this video is a fundraiser in collaboration with the clean Futures fund a us-based 501c3 non-profit organization who helped me get into Chernobyl in the first place and provided me with all the information in this video if you enjoy the following program and wish to donate every dollar raised will go towards this organization and their mission to help people still affected by the Chernobyl disasters aftermath to rebuild communities after the Russian invasion and of course to feed tag vaccinate and provide population control for the dogs of the Zone it makes a difference since the cff's involvement in 2016 no dogs or cats have been called in the zone the first thing you notice when you spot one of chernobyl's wild dogs is that they look surprisingly normal and not just normal beautiful they don't have two heads and they don't glow in the dark misconceptions about what radiation does they are lovely combinations of white black and brown spots and splotches Labradors slash shepherd-like and sturdy piercing orange eyes large Paws the dogs are skinny but not wasting away obviously wild but not aggressive dogs that have learned where the people are have no problem with eating right out of your hand or getting a head scratched older Dogs Watch calmly as you walk through the ghost city of pripyat streets precious large pod puppies follow tired looking mothers the dogs of Chernobyl no longer look like the unique breeds left behind in 1986 gone are the golden retrievers transformed are the Terriers after interbreeding for Generations this relatively isolated population of animals has become a group of radioactive mutts not quite a breed on their own but a fascinatingly unique population of animals that may reveal through scientific papers soon to be published just how canines can adapt to omnipresent radiation and gross contamination as they clearly have during our trips through pripient I jokingly use the term pup yet to denote the dogs a nod both to the many puppies you'll find Wandering the woods and the fact that those woods were once a town an entirely isolated population of animals interbreeding with each other for Generations that now look more or less homogeneous with some variations a population I didn't know how lucky it was to meet until long after I had left [Music] the dogs of Chernobyl are inarguably confusingly gorgeous animals what apparently happens when the privileged pets of pripyat a jewel of the Soviet Union 30 years ago create a single gene pool the fact that these animals look as good as they do and survive as well as they obviously have should tell you everything you need to know about the actual day-to-day danger of radiation in the zone radioactive contamination from 1986 still moves through the Ukrainian Woods long-lived particles and fission products are taken up by the trees and Moss move through the landscape by the wind and rain and bioaccumulate in the bones and bodies of all the organisms in this unique food chain however outside of hot spots which are indeed everywhere the ambient level of radiation where these puppies are being born isn't much higher than in the studio I'm recording this audio from that being said it has yet to be seen whether or not the dogs have the same kind of genetic damage that has been found in every other animal surveyed in the zone papers will soon be published on that too but what is clear is that despite what the workers at the nearby power plant may say the dogs themselves are not poisonous they carry with them the burden of inbreeding related disease not taking time bombs the dogs look surprisingly healthy given the extreme circumstances almost in spite of the sarcophagus that looms over them every day you'll be pleased to learn that yes you can pet these beautiful animals the dogs that are friendly have been habituated enough to expect it and enjoy it and to be honest even if it was a health risk which it's not I still would have pet this puppy I mean look at him you'll want to wash your hands afterwards though and be diligent about your interactions with them whether it's affecting them physically or not the dogs are still actively accumulating contamination doing what all dogs do rolling around on the ground digging in the dirt and eating well anything they can find though they are the descendants of house pets as petable as they look today the Zone's dogs are wild some of them are friendly as you can see and have learned where and when to get food from people but most steer clear of you and have a pack mentality that you won't find at any shelter they are wild and wildly intelligent what the dogs have learned surviving in the zone all this time is actually one of the biggest problems from the clean Futures fund many dogs have memorized the uniforms of those trying to capture them for neutering and or vaccination and Scatter at the site of personnel they are so good at memorizing humans in fact that every year cff has to change the colors of all of their uniforms one of the interesting things when you see enough of these puppies is that they all kind of have a similar look to them right [Laughter] oh man I couldn't have planned that any bit okay okay okay so they all kind of have a they have a look to them it's kind of a mutt like look but they all have similar looks and feels and when you watch them interacting with each other look at this you can see these dogs operate much more like a pack where certain dogs are included excluded you just saw this dog was scared Away by that dog Pack Leaders pack mentality it's a very interesting case of animals taking the best of a catastrophic situation and they're adorable but they're covered in ticks too it's amazing that chernobyl's dogs have survived in the zone for the last few decades but living here certainly isn't easy nearly all the dogs I saw looked good enough to pass as any house pet and then some but none of them were old the clean Futures fund told me that when they first got to Ukraine in 2016 they estimated the average lifespan of these animals was only one to three years not exactly the quality of life you'd want for man's best friend this has nothing to do with ambient radiation rather the biggest factors in their survival are much more mundane predation lack of food and water and lack of shelter from harsh Ukrainian Winters the dogs are going through that right now the dogs do have internal radioactive contamination but we don't yet know if that translates into the tumors and Cancers that can develop from years of low level irradiation it's unlikely given that these dogs live for less than five years in the first three years of their dogs of Chernobyl program the clean Futures fund was able to spay neuter and vaccinate over a thousand animals this brought the overall population down but their quality of life up today after spay and neuter clinics held in 2017 18 and 19. cff estimates that a manageable population of a few hundred dogs are living in the Chernobyl exclusion Zone and a few dozen dogs have been adopted in the United States there they serve as ambassadors for the dogs of Chernobyl program the fun keeps tabs on the population's health in Ukraine by tagging as many individuals as they can while providing food Water Shelter vaccination and population control for the dogs which both helps mitigate the harmful mutations that accumulate in a small gene pool and further increase overall quality of life but the cff still needs help and you can be a part of that help if you want to help the dogs of Chernobyl right now any donation you make underneath this video is tax deductible and will go towards maintaining this incredible and singular canine community your donations will also go towards the humans that work at and live around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant the dogs of Chernobyl get no medical care outside of what clean Futures fund does for them and were found starving when Russia invaded the nuclear power plant as food from humans is critical to this population you can help change all this the cff is returning to Chernobyl for another spay and neuter program to feed the dogs to tag them and your donations will directly support their work and if you still aren't convinced that this truly unique fascinating population of animals is deserving of your help please enjoy the next few minutes of gratuitous puppy and puppy at footage accompanied by semi-sad music and I must warn you what you're about to see is extremely cute yes I know what I'm doing it's for charity thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music]

Channel: Kyle Hill

Views: 3,048,190

Keywords: because science, engineering, kyle hill, learning, math, physics, science, stem, the facility, chernobyl, nuclear, dogs, puppies, ChNPP, exclusion zone, ukraine, chernobyl nuclear power plant, chernobyl hbo, chernobyl nuclear disaster, chernobyl disaster, chernobyl exclusion zone, radioactive dogs of chernobyl, radioactive dogs, chernobyl dogs

Id: bmVGwOP_zi8

Length: 14min 48sec (888 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 26 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/ManwithaTan]

Visited Chernobyl once and the dogs there are really adorable. Very affectionate, obviously there for your food but in a very gentle way. They hang around the checkpoints and buildings where the workers stay/eat. There's one by the Woodpecker called Tarzan that they found and he knew commands, so he must've been someone's dog beforehand. Nuclear puppo is the best puppo.

[u/realkylehill]

Damn what a handsome video for a good cause

[u/yolistenupman]

Dogs don’t last 30 years, so the title is a bit odd.

[u/Bestialman]

Surface level information, repetitive, and way longer that it needed to be.

The dogs are cute, but this video suck.

[u/bill-lowney]

That’s crazy. My last dog only made it to 15 or 16. Anyone know where I get some Chernobyl to give my next dog?