Chernobyl wolves may transfer mutant genes to other wolves when they travel outside the disaster zone where animals live but radiation levels remain high.
Scientists put trackers on 13 Chernobyl wolves, measuring their movements and radiation levels to which they have been exposed, National Geographic reported. They found one of the wolves traveled 250 miles and left the radiation area for the first time since the animals were tracked.
The Chernobyl nuclear disaster occurred in 1986, leaving a 1,660-square-mile area that contains wildlife such as wolves and birds but still has radioactive levels too high for humans to live there.
It isn’t unusual for young male wolves to travel long distances to find a mate, but the wolf’s travel suggests there may be a large number of wolves in the exclusion zone and that if the traveling wolf mated, any mutations present may be transferred to its offspring, although there is not yet definitive evidence that any mutations have been passed on, National Geographic reported.
Studies with birds and voles suggest both genetic mutations and radiation can be transferred to other animals in the environment, but some scientists also postulate that a wolf with high radiation levels would have too much genetic damage to travel 250 miles, so it may not pass on any mutations or radiation, National Geographic reported.
Scientists have found so far that areas of Chernobyl with high radiation levels have low levels of wildlife, which seems to support the theory that mutations may not be passed on in large numbers, National Geographic noted.
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