Location: Chernobyl, Ukraine
The Kittenmaster Writes: Yesterday I visited the site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine. I spotted this little fellow just outside the 10km exclusion zone, where we stopped for lunch. He looked happy and healthy, and was certainly very friendly (and yes, I know he’s not strictly a kitten, but I thought you’d like to see him anyway). Animal life in the area, after originally suffering terribly (all small mammals were dead within a couple of years) has actually flourished since the accident, and the absence of humans for two decades has done more to benefit wildlife than radiation has damaged it. Growing numbers of Mongolian horses can be seen roaming the landscape, and the abandoned town of Pripyat, once home to 60,000 people, is inhabited almost exclusively by bands of fearless wild boar.