A researcher studying stray animals in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone says the bright-blue dogs seen wandering the abandoned region are not radiation mutants, but animals that rolled in spilled chemical dye.
The explanation comes from Timothy Mousseau of the University of South Carolina, who advises the nonprofit group caring for roughly 700 stray dogs living around the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster.
Photos of the vividly colored animals circulated widely online, prompting speculation about contamination or genetic changes caused by long-term radiation exposure.
Mousseau says testing and observation point instead to environmental contamination unrelated to the reactor, noting that the blue coloration likely came from dye leaking from a damaged portable toilet.
The Dogs of Chernobyl program continues to monitor the health of animals in the zone, where researchers study how decades of abandonment and low-level radiation exposure affect local wildlife. Officials say there is no evidence the dogs’ unusual coloring is linked to radiation or genetic mutation.
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