What is Digg?92 Comments
- thefirelane, on 10/11/2007, -8/+53good idea, you first
- shewasjustagrl, on 10/11/2007, -0/+35The Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Georgia US is somewhat similar. What's unique about these areas is that people tend to avoid them altogether, encouraging wildlife to take up refuge despite the pollution.
Let's just hope we don't get a situation like in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. here :)
(Sorry for spam, I'm honestly not whoring for diggs since it's already pretty ancient)
http://www.digg.com/environment/The_World_s_Most_Ironic_Nature_Park - durzagott, on 10/11/2007, -2/+27The extermination of the human race would be great for wildlife until, say... a massive asteroid slams into the Earth again. Or a supervolcano blows its lid. Whilst humans are indeed a massive problem at the moment, in the long run we might actually be the guardians of all life on Earth.
It's a conundrum, I know. - Pic0, on 10/11/2007, -1/+21you say that now, but when a bobcat from Chernobyl area flies over your house in 20 years and takes your kid off to it's nest, you might see the impact
- brufleth, on 10/11/2007, -7/+26I'm not sure exactly why you're being dug down so much other than maybe stating the obvious. In most cases humans are the primary cause of habitat destruction.
- Millsee, on 10/11/2007, -1/+19In 2 years there'll be a Starbucks
- mccrusc, on 10/11/2007, -2/+18This is really awesome! I used to work In Dr. Tim Mouseau's Lab!
I don't remember any work in chernobyl though. I just collected beetles so we could sex them... Hm, i just realized that I know how to tell the difference between male and female insect naughty bits. I bet that is a rare skill. - Junkyarddawg, on 10/11/2007, -1/+16@achemolepias: You're missing the point. The question is if animals in the zone are dying faster than they can reproduce or not. And it seems that the answer is that they're reproducing faster than the radiation kills them AND humans killed them earlier - ie, they're *thriving* now.
The radiation is a negative, but apparently better than having humans around. - Rooster99, on 10/11/2007, -3/+15This appears to be evolution in action!
- Andrej73, on 10/11/2007, -27/+39All wildlife, and climate change problems have a quick solution:
collective suicide of entire human race. - organon, on 10/11/2007, -4/+16Well, no overreacting. But it's indeed telling that having humans living in an area is more destructive to biodiversity and life than heavy radioactive contamination.
I guess just finding ways to make it possible for humans to live and sustain a comfortable life with using as little surface area as possible on earth should solve most ecological problems.
And by not using I mean not driving over it, not digging in it, not dumping anything in it, doing nothing with it, just leaving it alone.
That should be the major focus of most research and policies in the next few decades. - DeFex, on 10/11/2007, -1/+12a bit of radiation is not as bad for wildlife as a plague of humans!
- Pic0, on 10/11/2007, -1/+12300 people still living there, there will be two
- Rooster99, on 10/11/2007, -1/+11Im a member of PETA - People Eating Tasty Animals! Join the club!
- martinqc, on 10/11/2007, -1/+11Wow, now S.T.A.L.K.E.R doesn't seem so far fetched anymore.
- SilentSpyder, on 10/11/2007, -3/+12suicide is the easy way out. If we can find a way to coexist in nature and lower our population that would be better.
- Junkyarddawg, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8You may not have been whoring for a digg, but you got one anyway. Damn interesting link. Thanks for that.
A similar, but less extreme, situation is with military training areas. Because they're off limits to the public, and because they're not intensively managed (old or dead trees are left in place, small bodies of water are not drained etc) they often have much richer flora and fauna than neighboring areas. Plants and animals are apparently less disturbed by being shelled or having tanks drive past now and then than they are by constant presence of people. - Junkyarddawg, on 10/11/2007, -8/+15As far as I can tell the "sink" theory can't be true, or at least not for the entire zone.
The reason being that there are now self-sustaining populations even of large mammals in the Chernobyl zone which do not exist outside - e.g. wild horses. They were actively inplanted by russian scientists shortly after the disaster, and they're still there.
I don't doubt that the wildlife suffer losses, especially close to the sarcophagus, but it seems to me the only viable interpretation is that even so they suffer less losses than they previously did in the area due to human influence. - 11Heather, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7Yes, go figure: evacuate the people, animals claim the land back. Vote for Animals! ;o)
- ThirdPrize, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6Remember, don't pet the 5 legged rabbits.
- OwdenBowden, on 10/11/2007, -4/+9It is rather amazing that these animals are thriving in this nuke environment. As you can see in the pic I was able to find - this fish looks happy.
http://www.duffgardens.net/media/images/blinky4.gif - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5http://www.chernobyl-children.org.uk/
- floorman56, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5Are 6 ft long, Man eating roaches considered "wildlife"?
- rinzwind, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6Life will find a way to cope any place, any time, anywhere
- HalFTW, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6Watch out for the anomalies while wildlife spotting in the zone.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Remember to keep the bits the psuedodogs drop so you can complete your mission.
- GirthAgain, on 10/11/2007, -7/+10http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_in_The_Simpsons#Blinky
- sparty1969, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3"From every rock we turn over, we find consequences," he told the Associated Press in a phone interview.
well at least "consequences" were not affected by the radiation. That must be one hardy creature. - StrangeFamous, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3I just had a dream about Chernobyl last night... it was rather scary, throughout the whole thing I was thinking, "Why the hell did I come here?" I was with a bunch of other people (not sure why) and at one point discovered a rotting, semi-eaten corpse covered in bugs and creepy-crawlies. I haven't even been playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. lately... it's been a few weeks since I finished it.
It's kinda funny how now there are wolves and wild boar running around the actual zone. As soon as we start hearing about how "strange, inexplicable forces of nature appear randomly, causing serious harm to anyone who gets too close." I'm gonna go buy a protective suit and rifle and start hunting for artifacts. - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2When are people gonna realize that the best conservation of the environment is to leave it alone? For example, all these massive US forest fires wouldn't happen if the forests were allowed to burn on their own naturally when fires DO start. Also, many common pest animals and plants were actually introduced by humans into foreign environments. I think that what happened in Chernobyl is another example of how human non-intervention in nature results in the healthiest ecosystem, even in a radioactive place.
Ecosystems in their current state have been more or less stable for hundreds of millions of years without humans' help; they self-manage. The best conservation of nature is to just let that process happen. - dmkemick, on 10/11/2007, -3/+5Anyone who has beaten S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (with the correct ending) shouldn't be all too surprised. =P
- anselfir, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2in some places natural background radiation are 10 to 100 times higher than 'normal'
radiation in these amounts is not that harmful - DarkSim, on 10/11/2007, -3/+5Interesting that the worst nuclear disaster in history still has far less impact on the environment than human colonisation does.
- bemenaker, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4Durzagot, I just hope we quit being so reckless while waiting for "The Big CleanUp" :)
- postal21, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3I mean the radiation just kills your slowly right?
Im going to assume that alot of these animals are just getting their little dose of radiation ever so slowly. I mean we get cancer and they are like you have a year or two to live... thats all some of these animals ever live anyways, so its just kind of the circle of life.
Many of these animals probably die before the cancer or radiation kills them... just the "survival of the fittest" aspect plays in. - Arcadian, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3With that amount of radiation damage, she very well might!
- BobsYourUncle, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Interesting article, but I found this line a little out of place: "...giving escorted tours to tens of thousands of visitors..."
So they're created these awesome wildlife refuges, and now we need to show everybody. Sounds like the first tentative steps toward the eventual destruction of the refuge. Hope it doesn't lead to that. The radiation and danger might prevent that though. What do I know (besides not much)? - Tarnum, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2"Oh, beautiful the spring in Chernobyl!
The blue grass,
The barking birds..." - fkr3, on 10/11/2007, -4/+6Not only has it returned, the wildlife is better than ever before.
... with all those extra eyes and whatnot. - n1pz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2"All wildlife, and climate change problems have a quick solution:
collective suicide of entire human race."
But the sudden introduction of 6B+ rotting dead creatures, would cause enormous pollution in water and soil (although we might be a useful fossil fuel one day!)
Also who's going to feed my neighbours cats?! - Tarnum, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2TIM: Well, that's no ordinary rabbit. That's the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on.
ROBIN: You tit! I soiled my armor I was so scared!
TIM: Look, that rabbit's got a vicious streak a mile wide, it's a killer! - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2My god. Environmentalists are wrong *a lot!* They really dropped the ball on that one - which ended up being a good thing as they predicted much worse.
- kahakauai, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Anyone ever watch the movie Tremors?
- givemereplay, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Get out of here stalker
- PdxPhoenix, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Could it be a question of the researcher Baker, et al being optimists & the researcher Mousseau, et al being pessimists?
As an optimist & knowing the horrors of radiation, what happened to the _Liquidators_, etc; I'd almost expect the number of nestlings to be deformed to be way more than one-third. I'm glad it's _only_ one-third... while Mousseau seems shocked that the number is as high as one-third. Each animal within each species will have a different threshold of tolerance for the radiation present where they choose to nest.
But the last part is better...It's a place the animals migrate to ('cause their prime enemy, man, isn't there, so they feel safe; because radiation doesn't smell, taste, visible, etc) yet the survivability of such location isn't as great as they might expect without man's apparent presence. - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Radiation is a lot like asbestos--low-level exposure neither kills you right away nor do you even notice it.
I'm assuming that the levels there are ionizing and, as such, will tend, over time, to cause more cancers and birth defects. It is more of an "average lifespan" modifier. - hiPpymIck, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2truth
FTA
"While the experts debate, Maria Urupa, harvests tomatoes from her garden, buys fish from the nearby Pripyat River and brews moonshine vodka." - craftycorner, on 07/28/2008, -0/+1They've found black mushrooms living INSIDE the reactor.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Promoted for you being a smart good looking girl on digg.
Damn I probably can't sound any freakier but I saw your pic and I had to go check the flickr account on your profile. Gorgeous. - panzermeyer, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2I wonder if they ran across Strelok.
-
Show 51 - 86 of 86 discussions
Digg is coming to a city (and computer) near you! Check out all the details on our 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is 