There Are Blue Dogs Roaming the Ruins of Chernobyl

At least three weirdly colored dogs have been spotted in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, the abandoned area around the 1986 nuclear reactor disaster site. This month, researchers from Dogs of Chernobyl recorded canines with blue fur, and they’re not sure how it happened. 

“We are on the ground catching dogs for sterilization and we came across three dogs that were completely blue,” the group posted on Instagram. “We do not know the reason and we are attempting to catch them so we can find out what is happening.”

Following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in April 1986, about 120,000 people evacuated the area, many leaving behind their pets.Descendants of the survivorscontinue to roam the ruins, and the Dogs of Chernobyl initiative (under the nonprofit Clean Futures Fund) monitors and sterilizes them.

The sudden appearance of blue dogs here will make some fertile imaginations wonder, might these animals be radioactive mutants? We don’t know the answer yet but the explanation is almost certainly more mundane. Jennifer Betz, the veterinary medical director for Dogs of Chernobyl, believes the dogs may have simply rolled around in a blue substance. 

“We are suspecting that this substance was from an old portable toilet that was in the same location as the dogs,” Betz told IFLScience. “The dogs appear healthy, as do all of the other dogs that we have encountered.”

The world’s worst nuclear accident was in some ways a blessing in disguise for some animal species. Without humans around, there has been a resurgence in populations of wild boar, red foxes, songbirds, and raccoon dogs. Most remarkable are the resident wolves, which are found to be genetically different from their counterparts outside of the exclusion zone. Last year a study showed that the irradiated wolves developed genetic mutations that appear to give them resistance to cancer.

Photo credit: @dogsofchernobyl1 via Instagram