For the past seven years radiation specialist Lucas Hixson has been working at the abandoned Chernobyl nuclear reactors in Ukraine.
In 1986 an accident at the former Soviet nuclear plant killed 31 people immediately, and thousands more from the health impacts of long term radiation exposure.
Photo: Clean Futures Fund
When Hixson first arrived, he was struck by the sight of hundreds of stray dogs that the other workers were feeding.
These dogs, living in harsh conditions and preyed upon by wolves, are the offspring of pets abandoned when people were evacuated from the area.
Hixson now does his best to feed and care for them; through his adoption and sterilisation efforts he has reduced the total dog population living there from 1,000 to about 500, and he does popular online tours giving people around the world a glimpse inside his work.
“I never imagined I’d be working here in Chernobyl with hundreds of stray dogs, but I couldn’t consider myself more than lucky to be able to do what I do, he told Kim Hill.
Photo: Dogs of Chernobyl
When the workers at Chernobyl were told to evacuate they took the essentials; pets were left behind.
The Soviet military then went in and culled the abandoned dogs because it was feared they would transmit radioactive contamination on their fur.
Not all were killed however.
“These dogs are incredibly intelligent, and you also have natural selection that is working, so only the strongest smartest, healthiest dogs survive and continue breeding and that’s what you see in the population at Chernobyl today are these incredibly intelligent animals that have adapted to this environment.”
And it is a harsh environment with food and shelter a constant struggle.
Lucas Hixson Photo: supplied / Clean Futures Fund
When he first arrived at Chernobyl there were 1000 dogs living wild lives inside the exclusion zone, he says.
As they started to study the dogs, they realised there was very little genetic damage from radiation.
There is an “incredibly healthy population” of dogs living in Chernobyl today, he says.
Now there is a sterilisation and vaccination programme which has brought the population down to around 600.
“I can say today, the dogs in the zone are living their best lives.”
There is a puppy adoption scheme and 60 puppies from the area are now in homes in the USA and Canada, the adapted, semi-wild dogs are not suitable for adoption.
He adopted his own dog – Divar - who would come and visit the veterinarian clinic every day.
“She was about seven months old at the time, but she began to understand when our end of day was coming, and I remember one morning I came into the hospital and there was a pile of puppy poop in the middle of the hallway.
Chernobyl dog Photo: supplied / Clean Futures Fund
“I knew that no dog should have been in the hospital overnight, so I was very confused about where it came from and I’m looking through the hospital and all of a sudden here comes Divar running out of one of the back rooms.
“She would notice closing down and find a hiding place every day a game of hide and seek.
“I knew at the end of that programme there was no way I was going to leave her behind.”
There's a fundraising page for the dogs here.
Photo: Dogs of Chernobyl
