Old Blue was the name of a black robin who was the last fertile female of her species. This species, on an island off the east coast of New Zealand, was incredibly brought back from the brink of extinction in the 1980s. Today, there are more than 250 black robins, all descended from "Old Blue".
And while I certainly wouldn't touch the Elephant's Foot, I would have no problem visiting the exclusion zone. Wildlife in the area is thriving. It's really not nearly as bad as people think.
fun fact: the nurse at my Boy Scouts summer camp in 1988 or whenever was a Soviet expat and medic at the site of the disaster.
Perhaps I have a fundamental misunderstanding of radiation but I assumed the radiation was in forms of harmfully penetrative light: UV, X, and Gamma rays.
I am curious to know if these animals die young or "age faster" from high levels of radiation. I thought radiation was why people could not fly to Mars. Perhaps that was to hype the importance of ozone.
But we are now told not to believe nukes destroying the ozone is even a consideration.
She is mentioned to be alive and well.
"...Today the total population is over 500 and growing quickly."
Could you please specify when today was as it clearly is not that today today (11th Feb 2023).