What happens to nature after a nuclear accident? And how does wildlife deal with the world it inherits after human inhabitants have fled? The historic nuclear accident at Chernobyl is now 25 years old. Filmmakers and scientists set out to document the lives of the packs of wolves and other wildlife thriving in the “dead zone” that still surrounds the remains of the reactor. Buy the DVD. This film premiered on October 19, 2011. (Video limited to U.S. & Territories.)

When did you first learn of the thriving wildlife populations in the zone? What about this story drew you to make this film?

I remembered Chernobyl from the day of the accident – it was quite a traumatic experience for us here in Austria. I had two young children at the time, and they were not allowed to play outside, walk in the grass or play in the sand for several weeks. We stopped gathering mushrooms in the forest, destroyed the vegetables in our garden.

Colleagues of mine (among them Nikolaus Geyrhalter) later actually visited Pripyat and shot footage there (not about wildlife), so Chernobyl was always simmered in the back of our minds.

I first learned about the wildlife in Chernobyl when researching for a BBC/ORF/ZDF series about wild Europe, “Europe – A Natural History,” back in 2003. Little was known about the status of the zone’s ecosystem in 2003, there were mostly wild rumours. The story was not included in “Europe” because of schedule and budget limitations, although I would have gone there even then. It would have been possible, at the time, to visit the Ukrainian part of the zone, where several film crews had worked over the years, but I am not sure about the Belarusian part – we did not try, nor did anyone else, as far as I know. The human history of Chernobyl was a different story altogether, and, apart from the evacuation itself, took place and is still taking place outside the zone. It was the secrecy, the lack of knowledge and images of the forbidden zone which made it seem an important subject.

What really interested me was the ecosystem bouncing back. There had been very little scientific research on wildlife in the zone until about 6 years ago when the Belarusians started some serious systematic long-term studies. Although Soviet botanists, zoologists and radiologists put in a great investigative effort in the first years after the accident, mostly in the territory of today’s Ukraine, next to nothing has been published. When the Soviet Union crumbled, all the research installations crumbled with it. In that period of political instability, much work was simply lost or possibly transferred to archives in Moscow.

How did you prep for filming in Chernobyl? What precautions did you take, considering the environment?

All visitors to the zone are accompanied and instructed by local authorities, but our team was especially lucky because our German location manager’s father is an expert on nuclear energy with access to useful knowledge and measuring instruments we were allowed to use. The list of all the precautions taken is too long for this interview, but here are the most important points: Avoid incorporating (inhaling, eating, drinking getting in touch with broken skin) anything that might contain radionuclides (smoke from timber, water, sand, animal hair, fruit, particles of plants etc.) inside the zone. That means wearing rubber boots at all times, not sitting on the ground, not brushing against plants, often wearing rubber gloves or a breath mask, sometimes even a protective suit. We wore dosimeters on our bodies at all times to control the overall exposure over time, and we carried various measuring instruments and a radiological map in order to avoid dirty areas. Washing hands and brushing fingernails frequently was a simple but important way of avoiding incorporation.

What were some of the biggest hurdles you had to overcome in making this film? How did you deal with these unique challenges?

Limited shooting time was the toughest problem. You may not spend the night in the zone and therefore have to travel from your base outside to shooting locations inside the zone over rough terrain every day. In winter and during floods, transportation was a challenge. Forest fires in summer mean that the zone is off limits altogether. The authorities there were extremely helpful in that and other respects — without their help we would have been stranded many times.

Chernobyl is a strange mix of death and life. Although you were documenting the new life springing up in the zone, often that wildlife occupies man-made ruins abandoned shortly after the 1986 nuclear disaster. What was your reaction to this stark contrast? Were there any specific images exhibiting this juxtaposition that you found particularly moving?

While the tragedy of the people who lost their homes is always felt, the houses as such — traditional timber structures — age and decay in a beautiful way as the vegetation swallows them up. Only the city of Pripyat with its concrete blocks visually evokes tragedy and destruction. As I walked through deserted villages, I often imagined the sounds of life that would have filled the streets and gardens. Sometimes, personal objects — a pair of farmer’s boots, a young woman’s brightly colored dress, a school book — would catch my eye and cause a sudden pang of emotion. Garden flowers run wild would trigger images of the hands that had planted them 25 years ago. On the anniversary of the accident, I stood on a fire tower and could see the reactor on the horizon, and a warm wind was blowing from that direction. For a moment, it made me hold my breath.

Was there anything about the wildlife in the zone that surprised you, or that you didn’t anticipate finding prior to filming?

Yes, too much to name it all. The ubiquitous raccoon dogs, for example, the many elk along the roadside, the obvious presence of lynx, the many, many wolf tracks and feces everywhere before we got our first glimpse of a wolf, the numerous pond turtles, the breath-taking flocks of cranes, black grouse, wild geese, the beavers — I simply had not expected so many of them.

We are expecting to see animals in trouble here, struggling with radiation poisoning and mutations. How is it that nothing seems to be wrong?

In the first few years after the accident, when high concentrations of various radionuclides dotted the land, there were, in fact, many casualties. In the wild, any sick animal will soon disappear. Twenty-five years down the road, much of the fall-out has been diluted by water or sand, washed away or blown away by the wind. The ambient radiation is not very high, although dirty spots with Plutonium in the ground remain and will remain for a long time. According to a very elaborate study by Belarusian scientists, 4 to 6 % of every new generation of small rodents suffers some sort damage from radiation. These individuals will usually not reproduce. If they do, they do not seem to pass on radiation-induced changes to the next generation. The overall population is not affected by a loss of 4 to 6 % per generation.

Would we be more affected by radiation than the animals here? Why are people not allowed to return to the zone?

Simply because 4 to 6% of all babies being in some way handicapped would be a disaster for humans, even though a human population as a whole would continue to live.

Were you afraid of exposure yourself?

In the beginning, yes, but the fear waned with time and experience. Also, at my age, I am not in a risk group. The risk is much greater for young people, pregnant women and especially children. Age is a factor because while your bones are still growing, you are more likely to incorporate radionuclides in your skeleton, and once there, they have a much longer time to do their destructive work.

There seems to be an ongoing debate on whether or not Chernobyl’s ecosystem is, in fact, healthy. After spending time in the zone, and seeing the wildlife firsthand, what’s your assessment of the exclusion zone and the new world that inhabits it?

We interviewed many scientists — more than you see in the film — and read their studies. From that and my own observations in the course of 2 years, my impression is that the eco-system is, on the whole, healthier than outside the zone where pesticides, hunting, road traffic, habitat degradation, etc. limit wildlife to a greater extent.

You’ve worked on a number of wildlife documentaries. In what ways was the making of this project similar and dissimilar from films you’ve worked on in the past?

Almost everywhere I have worked there is a degree of physical risk — avalanches in the Alps, the obvious dangers of working out on the Arctic sea-ice or in the middle of a desert. I felt that Chernobyl was no worse in that respect. What was different and very enjoyable was the incredible sense of peace and quiet in the center of the zone — hearing the wing beats of a heron flying by almost a kilometer away or a single leaf drop to the ground fifty steps away — that sort of silence is a luxury. And witnessing a gigantic healing process as that of Chernobyl’s ecosystem is a comfort to the soul. Plus, I must add, I really enjoyed working with the wonderful local people — to a greater degree than in most places I have worked.

What would you like people who see this film to come away with?

A realistic impression of the Chernobyl eco-system and landscape. People imagine a nuclear desert and have mostly seen depressing images of derelict kindergartens in the city of Pripyat while we are talking about a 3000 square kilometre new wilderness and Europe’s wildest wetlands. Concerning the risks of nuclear power, I have been extremely careful not to interpret or give a personal opinion but to strictly present facts as I found them, within the limits of our topic (wildlife, not humans). Thirdly, Chernobyl can be seen as a reference for comparing the situation of wildlife in human-dominated eco-systems with an eco-system where humans have been excluded — and that may say more about the land outside the zone than inside. It may sound provocative to human ears, but from a wolf’s perspective, nuclear disaster seems to be the most effective preservation measure we are seeing on this continent. Wolves in Chernobyl are much better off than Iberian lynx in Spain, in spite of a recent million-Euro programme for bringing the Iberian lynx back from the brink of extinction — to name just one example. And they are certainly better off than wolves anywhere else in Europe.

Klaus Feichtenberger wrote and directed Radioactive Wolves. He has worked on numerous nature documentaries including PBS Nature’s Drakensberg: Barrier of Spears and Prince of the Alps.

What happens to nature after a nuclear accident? And how does wildlife deal with the world it inherits after human inhabitants have fled?

In 1986 a nuclear meltdown at the infamous Chernobyl power plant in present-day Ukraine left miles of land in radioactive ruins. Residents living in areas most contaminated by the disaster were evacuated and relocated by government order, and a no-man’s land of our own making was left to its own devices. In the ensuing 25 years, forests, marshes, fields and rivers reclaimed the land, reversing the effects of hundreds of years of human development. And surprisingly, this exclusion zone, or “dead zone,” has become a kind of post-nuclear Eden, populated by beaver and bison, horses and birds, fish and falcons – and ruled by wolves.

Access to the zone is now permitted, at least on a limited basis, and scientists are monitoring the surviving wildlife in the area, trying to learn how the various species are coping with the invisible blight of radiation. As the top predators in this new wilderness, wolves best reflect the condition of the entire ecosystem because if the wolves are doing well, the populations of their prey must also be doing well. Accordingly, a key long-term study of the wolves has been initiated to determine their health, their range, and their numbers.

Radioactive Wolves examines the state of wildlife populations in Chernobyl’s exclusion zone, an area that, to this day, remains too radioactive for human habitation.

Radioactive Wolves kicks off our 30th season and premieres Wednesday, October 19 at 8/7 c.

Traditionally, the experts studying the evolution of modern dogs believed that domestication was a conscious effort of humans. The theory was that ancient people took wolf pups from their dens, adopted them, fed them, trained and tamed them.

Biologist Raymond Coppinger, who has spent over 45 years working with and studying dogs, says that this story is nothing more than a romantic fairy tale. “I call it a ‘just so’ story. Nobody who has ever trained a wolf had any success if they started after 19 days,” says Coppinger, a professor of biology and animal behavior at Hampshire College in Massachusetts.

“We’ve got a graduate student doing it now. You take them out of the den when they are 13 days old and their eyes aren’t open, and you spend 24 hours a day with them, socializing them with people, bottle feeding them. You have to have a time surplus society like mine, where you have graduate students with nothing else to do. Mesolithic people would have been struggling for life. They wouldn’t have had time.” In addition, Coppinger says, even tamed wolves aren’t likely to be docile when it comes to food-or breeding. “I work with tamed wolves all the time. I don’t care how tame they are, try to take their bone away. It’s even worse when it comes to breeding. You start to fool around with wolves when they’re in a courtship performance, you could die right there on the spot.”

Biologist Raymond Coppinger Coppinger has another idea: the wolves domesticated themselves. He suspects that the process would have begun at the end of the last Ice-Age approximately 15,000 years ago when people began to gather and live in one place for the first time. The appearance of these villages was fairly rapid and coincidental with the fossil evidence of dogs as we know them.

“People are organized into continuous settlements — villages where they remain for a long period of time, whether there were sitting on the edge of a shell fishery or on the edge of a coral reef. When humans live in the same spot for a long period of time, they create waste, including both sewage and, more importantly for the dog, leftovers. There are things people can’t eat, seeds that fall on the ground, things that have gone bad,” Coppinger says, “The garbage, which might be found in dumps, or just scattered near houses, attracts scavengers: cockroaches, pigeons, rats, jackals — and wolves.”

Coppinger believes that a behavioral characteristic called “flight distance” was crucial to the transformation from wild wolf to the ancestors of the modern dog. It represents how close an animal will allow humans (or anything else it perceives as dangerous) to get before it runs away. Animals with shorter flight distances will linger, and feed, when humans are close by; this behavioral trait would have been passed on to successive generations, and amplified, creating animals that are increasingly more comfortable around humans. “My argument is that what domesticated — or tame — means is to be able to eat in the presence of human beings. That is the thing that wild wolves can’t do.”

I’m just back from another trip to the Alaska Peninsula where I had an incredible experience with a wolf and managed to capture it on film. This is not something that happens every day, but this wolf came over to check us out at very close quarters. There was something about having this wild animal trot towards us that will stay with me forever. Not only that but there’s a giant brown bear in the same frame too! That’s wildness at its best! See and read more at Chris’s blog.