Not just despair and death: Chernobyl's abandoned cows are going wild and looking pretty happy
Not just despair and death: the abandoned cows of Chernobyl are going wild and appear quite happy with the new condition, without owners, free. This was reported by employees of the Chernobyl Ecological Biosphere and Radiation Reserve, in the exclusion zone.
The cattle, which once belonged to the communities that inhabited the villages in the area, are now abandoned organized in a "spontaneous" herd, but they show behaviors that are decidedly different from those typical of domestic animals.
The herd of these cattle, now wild, is in fact radically different from the usual rural herd: it is structured, has integrity, always acts in harmony and protects its young with more attention.
The calves, in turn, choose the safest place in the herd between an adult bull and the cows. And young cattle are well adapted to the cold. Among other things, the "head" bull, the oldest and strongest, does not expel the young males, but keeps them in groups to protect them from predators, as long as they do not contest their guidance.
In these areas, in a very remote past, lived the ancestors of oxen, the aurochs (scientific name Bos taurus primigenius), originally from India two million years ago and arrived in Europe around 250.000 years ago.
The last aurochs sighted, a female, died of natural causes in 1627 in the Jaktorów forest, Poland, and it is now certain that the extinction of this ancient species was caused by various causes, including hunting, the habitat always more restricted by the advancement of agriculture, as well as diseases transmitted by domestic livestock.
The other day a post was published on the website of the Chornobyl Reserve: “WILD HERD IN WINTER: NO WORRY
Posted by Chornobyl Radiation and Ecological Biosphere Reserve on Friday, January 22, 2021
The herd that graze freely in Chernobyl it was actually spotted for the first time in 2017, but only now are the employees of the reserve certain that they can affirm that it is a truly organized wild structure, as if it had always been far from man. In a place destroyed by man himself (Read also: Chernobyl: Bumblebees are still at risk of radiation almost 35 years after the terrible nuclear disaster).
They really remember the aurochs, at least according to the findings and "indirect" studies on this now extinct species, and they offer us one unique show, as often happens to nature when we are, in fact, just watching.
Sources of reference: Chernobyl Radiation and Ecological Biosphere Reserve / Facebook
Read also:
- They are dredging the river near Chernobyl with the risk of re-emerging radioactive sludge from the nuclear disaster
- Wheat from Chernobyl is still contaminated, even what grows outside the exclusion zone
- The mystery of Chernobyl's nuclear waste is solved by a drone
