14 DAY TRIAL // The 30th season premiere of Nature is scheduled to air October 19, 2011 at 8 p.m. (ET) on PBS, focusing on the effects of nuclear accidents, such as the one at Chernobyl 25 years ago on the wildlife.
The season opener, dubbed Radioactive Wolves, documents the lives of the packs of wolves and other wildlife in the area around the reactor that is still to dangerously radioactive for human habitation.
When the meltdown of the nuclear power plant took place on April 26, 1986, everyone living in the exclusion zone was evacuated and relocated by government order. It is now monitored separately by the new nations of Belarus and Ukraine.
In the absence of people, the so-called dead-zone has returned yo its natural state, now being populated by beaver and bison, horses and birds, fish and falcons – and ruled by wolves.
The access to the zone has been permitted on a limited basis, so scientists are taking advantage of that to study how the surviving wildlife is coping with the radioactivity.
With wolves being the dominant species in the area, the researchers believe they reflect the condition of the entire eco-system. The study has thus been initiated to determine their health, their range, and their numbers.
German scientists Barbara and Christoph Promberger radio-collar wolves in the zone to track their movements. Their study will help answer questions about the size of the wolf population, whether or not they are indigenous or migrants, and how these wolves are different from populations in clean areas.
Their work is taken over by local wolf expert, Professor Vadim Siderovich, from the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, and his researcher, Grigori Ivanovich, who will compile the data.
Ukrainian wolf expert Maryna Shkvyrya also tracks wolves in the very shadow of the reactor, in an effort to create a map of wolves in her study area.
The new episodes of Nature will lead PBS primetime on Wednesdays. After the broadcast, the program will stream at the following link.
You can watch a preview of the Nature: Radioactive Wolves episode below: