Chernobyl animals worse affected than thought: study

By Nick Vinocur

LONDON (Reuters) - Radiation has affected animals living near the site of Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear disaster far more than was previously thought, a study showed Wednesday, challenging beliefs that local wildlife was on the rebound.

The study showed that numbers of bumble-bees, butterflies, spiders, grasshoppers and other invertebrates were lower in contaminated sites than other areas because of high levels of radiation left over from the blast more than 20 years ago.

The findings challenge earlier research that suggested animal populations were rebounding around the site of the Chernobyl explosion in Ukraine, which forced thousands to abandon their homes and evacuate the area.

Estimates of the number of deaths directly related to the accident vary. The World Health Organization estimates the figure at 9,000 while the environmental group Greenpeace predicts an eventual death toll of 93,000.

"We were amazed to see that there had been no studies on this subject," Anders Moller, a researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research in France, who led the study, said in telephone interview.

"Ours was the first study to focus on the abundance of animal populations."

Researchers said they had compared animal populations in radioactive areas with less contaminated plots and found that some were nearly completed depleted of animal life.

"There are areas with an abundance of 100 animals per square meter," Moller said. "And then there are areas with less than one specimen per square meter on average; the same goes for all groups of species."