Somewhere inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, three dogs have turned blue. Not figuratively, but actually blue.
Earlier this month, volunteers from Dogs of Chernobyl were out catching strays for sterilization when they noticed the blue dogs. They were bright, sky-colored dogs running through the dust and ruins. The team posted photos on Instagram, half amazed, half worried.
“We came across three dogs that were completely blue,” they wrote. “We’re not sure exactly what’s going on.”
The group, which is part of the nonprofit Clean Futures Fund, cares for roughly 700 dogs that still live within the 19-mile zone surrounding the old nuclear power plant. Most of the canines are descendants of pets left behind when residents were forced to evacuate after the 1986 explosion. The people never returned and the dogs never left.
At first glance, the photos looked like something out of a sci-fi movie. Blue dogs, in the middle of one of the most radioactive places on Earth. Naturally, people assumed radiation had something to do with it. But the volunteers don’t think so.
According to Clean Futures Fund, the color is probably chemical — maybe paint, maybe dye, maybe even a leaking portable toilet. CBS News reported that the group ruled out spray paint or radiation exposure. Whatever caused it, it’s likely temporary.
The dogs, at least, seem fine. “They were active and behaving normally,” the group said. Which, for the Chernobyl dogs, means scavenging, dodging wolves, and surviving another winter in one of the most abandoned corners of the planet.
The Dogs of Chernobyl project was created to keep that population healthy, as healthy as it can be under those conditions. Volunteers vaccinate, sterilize, and feed the strays when they can. None of the animals are allowed to leave the exclusion zone, so the group essentially runs a permanent field hospital in place.
Every one of those dogs traces back to a moment in 1986 when families fled their homes thinking they’d be gone for three days. They left food and water out. They promised their pets they’d be back. Then the soldiers came.
Nearly forty years later, their descendants still wait.
Now, a few of them have turned blue, for reasons no one fully understands. Maybe it’s just chemical waste. Maybe it’s something else.
Either way, the image feels right for Chernobyl — strange, haunting, and hard to explain.
Source: People