Key Highlights
- Photos taken earlier this year showed several dogs with bright blue fur wandering the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster in Ukraine, fueling widespread speculation online, including theories of radiation exposure and mutations. However, a scientific advisor for the organization that cares for the strays says those ideas could not "be further from the truth." "The blue dye likely came from a tipped over port-a-potty where the dogs were rolling around in the poop, as dogs are prone to do," Timothy Mousseau of the University of South Carolina was quoted saying on the Dogs of Chernobyl Facebook account.
- RADIOACTIVE WASP NEST DISCOVERED BY WORKERS AT FORMER NUCLEAR BOMB SITE Photos taken earlier this year showed several dogs with bright blue fur wandering the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster in Ukraine.
- (Clean Futures Fund via Storyful ) Mousseau noted this behavior is similar to how some dogs are drawn to cat litter boxes."The blue coloration was simply a sign of the dog's unsanitary behavior!" Mousseau said.
- "As any dog owner knows, most dogs will eat just about anything, including feces!" Despite the social media speculation, the dogs' blue fur does "not reflect any kind of mutation or evolutionary adaptation to radiation," he added. UKRAINE BLAMES RUSSIA FOR DRONE ATTACK ON CHERNOBYL'S PROTECTIVE SHELL, ZELENSKYY SAYS DAMAGE 'SIGNIFICANT' Dogs of Chernobyl, the program that cares for the roughly 700 dogs in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, first shared images of the blue-tinted dogs in October.
- (Clean Futures Fund via Storyful ) Dogs of Chernobyl, the program that cares for the roughly 700 dogs in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and is affiliated with the nonprofit Clean Futures Fund (CFF), first shared images of the blue-tinted dogs in October.
