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Health

Chernobyl dogs could hold the secret to surviving nuclear apocalypse

By
Alex Mitchell
Published March 6, 2023
Updated March 6, 2023, 3:44 p.m. ET

Bow wow!

Descendants of the dogs exposed to powerful blasts of radiation from the Soviet Chernobyl plant meltdown in 1986 might hold the key to what’s needed to survive a nuclear blast.

Scientists are researching how canines in the area have been affected and how they seem to have adapted more favorably than other animals — particularly birds, which saw extreme genetic defects.

“Dogs were there immediately after the disaster,” Gabriella Spatola, a geneticist at the National Institutes of Health and the University of South Carolina, told the Atlantic.

The findings of researchers like Spatola “could both reveal the lasting tolls of radiation and hint at traits that have helped certain dogs avoid the disaster’s worst health effects,” writes Katherine J. Wu in the Atlantic.

“The fates of dogs — bred and adapted to work, play, and lounge at our side— are tied to ours. And the canines we leave behind when crises strike could show us what it takes to survive the fallout of our gravest mistakes.”

The descendant of dogs who have lived in Chernobyl since the 1986 meltdown are being studied for their genetics.
The descendant of dogs who have lived in Chernobyl since the 1986 meltdown may hold interesting clues. AFP via Getty Images
Chernobyl German shepherd.
The vast majority of dogs near the plant are German shepherds. AP

And, although the long term impacts on the canines’ various lines remain unclear still, “some of [the dogs] appear to be flourishing on terrain now largely devoid of humans and their polluting, disruptive ways,” Wu notes in the article.

This could be in, part, due to the fact that dogs are so dependent on humans. When humans fled Chernobyl, they might have initially struggled to fend for themselves — but they also would have been less likely than other animals to eat animals and plants contaminated by radiation.

Not surprisingly, the lineage of dogs who were exposed, but had some distance from the meltdown, seems distinct from those who were close by the reactor. The dogs further from the reactor are an assortment of breeds and mixes, as you would find elsewhere. But the pack closest to the reactor is more inbred and almost exclusively German shepherds.

Researchers want to see if dogs from Chernobyl show possible genetic strengthening from exposure to radiation.
Researchers want to see if dogs in Chernobyl show possible genetic strengthening from exposure to radiation. AP
Researchers are looking into the effects that Chernobyl has had on nearby dog populations.
Researchers are looking into the effects that Chernobyl has had on nearby dog populations. AFP via Getty Images

Elinor Karlsson, a genomics expert at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, said that, in studying these dogs, they might find that their genes have mutated and caused sickness. But, they might also find that the plant dogs possess unique genetic traits for survival — including a greater resistance to cancer.

“That, in turn,” Wu writes, “could bode well for us [people].”