Horses of Chernobyl use abandoned buildings as shelter

Camera traps show Przewalski's horses routinely using abandoned barns and buildings in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, with repeated visits recorded in both winter and summer; researchers say those structures can serve as focal points for demographic study.

Przewalski's horses have taken to using abandoned barns and other buildings inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Conservationists released 36 horses to the area between 1998 and 2004, and the population later expanded north into Belarus's Polesie State Radiation Ecological Reserve. Motion-activated cameras tracked the animals across seasons and found repeated use of human-made structures. Researchers report these buildings can provide useful opportunities to observe population size, age, sex ratio, and genetic structure. Key observations: - Motion-activated cameras recorded horses 35 times at nine of 10 monitored structures during winter months and 149 times at all eight monitored structures during the summer. - Horses often spent more than five consecutive hours inside these structures when present. - Other species recorded using the same buildings in summer included brown hare, red deer, moose, wild boar, red fox, raccoon dog, Eurasian lynx, wolves, various birds, and bats. - The study described was conducted on the Belarusian side of the border, in the Polesie State Radiation Ecological Reserve. - Field research has been periodically disrupted by wildfires since 2020 and by the Russian occupation of parts of the zone beginning in early 2022; authorities reported a landmine-related Przewalski's horse fatality in June 2025. Summary: These observations indicate abandoned structures in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone act as recurring shelters and practical sites for collecting demographic information on Przewalski's horses and other mammals. Researchers aim to expand monitoring to the Ukrainian side using proposed geospatial frameworks, but that work has been intermittent because of the Russo‑Ukrainian War and recent wildfires.