Original subtitles

This is the story of a busy city, once full of life.

And the village not far away, which the noise and pollution of the city couldn't reach.

Each day the village cats came home and waited for their owners to come back.

But one day the cats returned to find that all the people had gone.

They waited, but no one ever came back.

The cats stayed alone in the village, and gradually the wild creatures of the nearby forest began to join them.

Together they made it a new kind of home, where only animals lived.

It seemed like the best place in the world.

Wolves and wild boar all run free, because there were no people to hunt them.

As time passed, the old village became a haven for hundreds of different creatures.

But this place had a dreadful secret.

This was Chernobyl, and everyone had suddenly left because of a terrifying event.

They were all escaping one of modern man's greatest fears, a nuclear disaster, which had cast a spell on this place.

A spell that couldn't be lifted for many thousands of years.

This is the exclusion zone of Chernobyl today.

Like a fabled lost city, devoured by forest, it's fast becoming a green and peaceful place.

But it will forever be remembered as the location of the worst nuclear accident in history.

In 1986, this place was the site of a nuclear meltdown.

No one's been allowed to live here for over 20 years.

And today it stands as an abandoned testament to the terrible effects of nuclear disaster.

The Ukrainian city of Pripyat, now a ghost town, lies close to the border with Belarus,

and just to the north of the destroyed nuclear power plant.

For the whole of mankind, this place is a fun place.

On the outskirts of the city are empty rural villages surrounded by woodland.

Many of these villages have become refuge for an unexpected mixture of forest wildlife

and the descendants of Chernobyl's abandoned pets.

Where families once lived and children played, there are now abandoned houses where time seems to have stood still.

This is a story of some of the animals that have made this forsaken place their home.

A place they don't appear to sense is contaminated.

But as radioactive as it is, there are no more pesticides, no industry, no traffic.

A place they don't appear to be.

Among relics of a not too distant past, this female cat has made a home for herself and her new litter.

Three young kittens still dependent on her for milk.

She was born here two, three years ago.

She may be a house cat like her mother and grandmother before her, but few creatures here will ever see a human being.

Inside the house life goes on as normal.

But outside, nature has started to make changes.

With the people gone, nature is beginning to win back this land.

The relentless growth of the encroaching forest is gradually reclaiming the untended gardens.

Without anyone to make repairs, the houses have fallen into decay.

And as the forest slowly creeps in, so do the wild inhabitants, creatures that the people were so determined to keep out.

Among them are brown bears, absent here for over a century, and until recently confined to forests many miles away.

Two young brothers, who have left their mother not long ago, and are trying to find their own way in the world.

Those might look like bears trying to steal honey from a hive.

But they're more interested in any bee lover than might be inside.

When the young bears aren't playing, they're hungry.

Nearby there's an apple orchard.

The trees here still produce a great deal of fruit, and the bears are keen to take advantage.

But as climbing days are numbered, he's far too big for this kind of thing.

And there are much easier ways for a bear this big to get apples from a tree, like brute force.

Back in the days when Pripyak was a busy industrial city, no one saw bears in the surrounding forests.

But in the years since the people abandoned this place, they've started to reappear.

For them this place has become an unlikely sanctuary.

They pass through the zone, and this village is, and into the forest beyond its borders.

And when they visit, they'll take advantage of anything they can find.

The scent left by the cat lingers around the gap where she goes in and out.

But it's far too small for him to get through.

And the door is locked.

But not for long.

Leaving their table manners in the forest, they ransacked the house for anything they can eat.

But finding nothing tasty on offer, it's time for breaking and exiting.

And it's not just bears that have discovered a ghost town can make the perfect sanctuary.

Beyond the houses and gardens, numerous other species are beginning to reappear in healthy numbers.

Among them are elk and deer.

Both would have been hunted so close to human habitation.

But not anymore.

Przaski's horse can be found here too.

Incredibly rare.

They're the only true modern descendants of the original wild horse.

They were introduced here in 1998, because the exclusion zone had started to show signs of becoming a natural sanctuary for other species.

To everyone's surprise, as houses and roads disappeared beneath a miniature forest, Mother Nature began to reclaim this place from the ground up.

Plants flourished and provided food for insects.

The food chain was gradually reestablished, with such extraordinary diversity that it stunned the scientists.

What they saw was nothing like the nuclear desert they expected.

They even found endangered species. Over 40 animals that were listed as protected.

What man had abandoned, Nature now embraced to create a remarkable and self-made haven.

Where, for many years to come, the wildlife can live undisturbed by man.

From the smallest pollinators to large grazing species, and even predators like the wolf.

The wolf is a young male.

Like the bears, he's also left his family, and as in search of independence.

For the wolf, independence means a pack of his own.

He needs to find a female and start a family.

But he must be careful to stay hidden from the other wolves that live here.

They won't tolerate him and will chase him out of their human-free forest haven.

Every acute sense he has is now tuned into his environment, sensing any signs of danger.

Perhaps the village will be a good place for him too, but for now he'll stay hidden, deep within the wood.

The village is close by, just beyond the trees and already close enough for him to smell.

This environmental tragedy is bittersweet.

A man made disaster that ruined this place and made it uninhabitable for people, but turned it into a unique sanctuary for wildlife.

Remarkably, Nature has licked its wounds and fought back to reclaim this place.

And while we may not know what lies ahead for the radioactive animals of Chernobyl, we do know that there are now a lot more of them than they used to be.

And that means there's always plenty to eat.

Back at the old house, the kittens are almost weaned.

And that means she must leave them alone while she makes frequent hunting trips to bring back food.

As the kittens play, the mother heads out into a hunting territory.

And they begin to explore on their own.

They might look like your average house pet, but these ones are as wild and predatory as any big cat.

Every meal they eat must be hunted down.

But that's not as easy as you'd think.

When the people left here, the rodent population went into decline.

So she's had to become an even more efficient predator to keep her hungry litter fed.

But every single creature she catches comes packed with more than protein.

This area was subjected to radiation fallout equivalent to 400 hee-rashimas.

In 1986, reactor number four at Chernobyl's nuclear power plant blew up,

triggering fires and a chain reaction of explosions that exposed the core,

resulting in a nuclear meltdown.

Clouds of radioactive dust were sent high into the air and were carried on the wind for hundreds of kilometers.

In the immediate vicinity of the power plant, this radioactive dust settled in a blanket of deadly fallout,

leaving a post-apocalyptic radiation-soaked dead zone, a deserted city,

and an irreparably damaged ecosystem that no one wanted.

But if the scale of the disaster wasn't enough, there was something about the timing that made its impact even worse.

It had happened in April, springtime, the time when flowers were coming into bloom,

when insects were feeding and in turn becoming food for bigger creatures.

Radioactivity is especially damaging to cells that are beginning to divide.

In other words, growing organisms were especially vulnerable.

The forest floor, with its fresh new growth, soon intensified the ground levels of radiation.

The animals of the exclusion zone are all radioactive,

but the predicted genetic mutations are extremely rare.

One strange phenomenon is the change in sexual behavior of the river's aquatic worms.

They used to reproduce asexually or alone, but they've started having sex with each other.

Sexual reproduction may strengthen genes that could protect them from radiation damage.

Chernobyl's wildlife may be more remarkable than we think.

The cat is now making her way home with a fresh kill.

It's another vital meal for her litter.

But everything she eats and everything she brings home for her kittens is laced with radioactivity.

For their size, rodents contain higher doses of radiation than larger mammals.

This is because they spend a lot of their time close to the ground and in burrows where the concentrations of radioactivity are being used.

This is because they spend a lot of their time close to the ground and in burrows where the concentrations of radioactivity are still high.

Just like a big cat, she brings back live plutonium-packed prey for her kittens to play with, teaching them how to hunt.

Radioactive elements actually behave much like nutrients.

They accumulate as they pass up the food chain.

Everything from insects to plant eaters experiences a buildup of radioactivity becoming concentrated in larger predators.

Like the cats, the wolf gets a dose of radiation every time it feeds on plant-eating prey.

One fast track for radiation entering the food chain has been through fungi.

Along with bacteria, they in nature's most prolific decomposes, so their role in circulating radioactivity through the environment is crucial.

They absorb radioactivity just as they would nutrients directly from the ground.

While born, they thrive in the zones' forests. Their favorite food is mushrooms, and they can absorb over 30 times the safe levels of radioactivity during the peak growth season.

As he sleeps off his travels, the wolf is woken by the sound of mushroom digging boar.

The wolf is a little bit more than a little bit more than a little bit more than a little bit more than a little bit more than a little bit more than a little bit more than a little bit more.

The wolves prey on wild boar, but he's alone, and if he breaks cover, he'll be taking on an entire herd.

Despite the fact that wild boar feed on mushrooms, they have immense power and sharp tusks, making them extremely dangerous.

They could easily fight off a long wolf.

He keeps quiet and stays hidden, waiting for an easier opportunity.

Meanwhile, high above the forest floor, another predator, the snake eagle, brings back food from the hot zone down below,

and feeds it to the hungry young birds still in the nest.

There are now 270 different bird species nesting in the exclusion zone, and 180 of them are now breeding intensively.

The spontaneous animal population boom in a city purpose built as a great human achievement.

To really understand why this place has experienced such an extraordinary resurrection as a refuge, it's important to realize how significant its demise was.

This is a city that has become a monument for disaster.

Pripyat lies right next to the site of the doomed nuclear power plant at Chernobyl.

From its houses and apartments, schools and businesses, 50,000 people were forced to flee.

Pripyat was one of the youngest of all cities, built June the 1970s, but it was also destined to be the most short-lived.

Nothing left Pripyat apart from its residents.

They were permitted few possessions for fear of contamination.

And as the rain poured down just days after the disaster, it brought even more radioactive dust back to the streets of the abandoned city.

In the days following the disaster, a 30-kilometer radius of a post-nuclear badlands was established to isolate it from the rest of the world.

This is the most contaminated land on the planet, land that will take thousands of years to become healthy again.

The land was

but signposts and warnings don't keep animals out.

The so-called zone of alienation became a magnet.

But the legacy of its human past will influence the way the wildlife survives here for many years to come.

For bears that come and go in and out of the zone, there are regular stop-offs at the empty buildings.

Bears are inquisitive animals, and these old houses often contain something worth eating.

This one has the kittens inside.

They've been left alone while their mother is out hunting again.

But their scent is so beautiful that they're not able to eat.

They've been left alone while their mother is out hunting again.

But their scent is strong and the bear investigates.

Looking for a way up to where the smell is coming from, there's a stroke of luck for the helpless kittens, an old pot of jam.

It distracts the bear just in time, and the kittens have a narrow escape.

With the bear gone, the house is safe again, and the kittens continue to explore.

Meanwhile, their mother, oblivious to the dangers her kittens have been facing, is doing what she does best, searching for food, always on the lookout for an opportunity.

Chernobyl's bird life is often less contaminated by radiation than creatures that live on the ground.

But it was a species of bird that showed a genuine case of mutation after the disaster.

Some barn swallows produced white rather than red feathers under their chins.

But it appears to have been unattractive to other swallows, and the mutation died out.

Other mutations have been briefed, too. Mutants are often weaker and may easier targets for predators.

Life in Chernobyl really is about survival of the fittest.

As the cat travels through a surprisingly green post-nuclear landscape, it's hard to imagine this forbidden zone with a silver lining.

But the resurrection of Chernobyl's wildlife was so unexpected that it left environmentalists heartened by nature's triumph of a man's most terrifying and self-destructive of deeds.

While she's making a journey, it's also time for the kittens to start fending for themselves.

They make their first unaccompanied steps from the safety of the old house.

They combine the spirit of adventure with a serious lack of experience, and is extremely unlikely that they will have much success in finding anything to eat on their own.

At best, they must try and stay alive.

For the mother cat to have survived here, she must know where to hunt for food, and how to stay out of trouble.

She'll often take advantage of hunting in a confined space.

Such a strategy takes her into the derelict buildings that were once the schoolhouse.

Among the debris scattered around are the children's gas masks.

Everything here has been left to gradually succumb to the sublime decay that only time can bring.

And it has plenty of that.

Every object adds to the eerie memories of a place once so full of life.

Meanwhile, her young ones are still heading further away from the safety of the house.

They've stuck together, moving as a little pack.

But without their mother, they've no sense of the danger they may be heading into.

She's still unaware of what the adventurous kittens are up to, as she continues to patrol the old schoolhouse.

Hundreds of Pripyat school children were forced to flee, leaving everything behind.

Their toys and books, frozen in time.

She scours the gymnasiums and kindergarten playrooms.

These old buildings have remained a stronghold for the rodent population, with plenty of places to make a nest.

Back on their own journey, the kittens are heading into open country,

making them even more vulnerable to attack.

Not from predators lurking in the shadows of the old building, but anything that's watching from above.

One of the most successful of hunters that now inhabit this place is the bird of prey.

There are so many small mammals here that they've become incredibly successful.

And a kitten makes an easy kill.

As one of her kittens becomes prey, their mother is about to make her own kill.

A small snake, just enough to keep her going.

But as always, it brings another dose of radiation.

After her journey, she's finally returned to the old house to check on her kittens.

But she soon makes a disturbing discovery.

She's returned home to find an intruder lurking around the family home.

The lone wolf has finally reached the village and is starting to explore.

The forest wolves seldom venture this far into what was once the human world.

They're far too wary.

But for our wolf, that could be an advantage.

He must keep hidden from the other packs.

And this might be just the place to do it.

They play hide and seek through the fallen timbers of the old barn.

This is her territory, and she knows every inch of it well.

She manages to keep one step ahead of him.

She won't be able to keep the wolf from the door for much longer.

His persistence pays off, and he manages to get into the house.

If they stay high, they'll be able to keep the wolf from the door.

If they stay high, they'll never be able to reach them.

The mother cat leads by example and keeps her nerve.

While she's here to watch out for them, they'll have the best chance of staying alive.

Eventually he gives up the search, but he's found a new home.

Next, he's here to find the wolf.

He'll need to find a mate.

While he's gone for now, he'll almost certainly be back.

His arrival means they must leave.

She's down to two kittens now, and she can't risk losing another one.

She's about to embark on the first leg of a journey that will take the family away from the only home she's ever known.

The house where she was born and where she grew up.

She gathers the young kittens, and together they leave the old house for the last time, never to return.

They make their way to the outskirts of the village.

They're heading towards the forest, a place she's been many times before.

But it's a strange and unfamiliar world for the kittens.

The

It's slow going. The wood is full of huge obstacles for the small cats.

The

Sticking close together, she makes sure they're never far behind.

And gradually they start to find their feet as they cross the streams and rivers following her lead.

Even the sinus branch makes a useful bridge.

The forest is full of creatures they've never seen before.

A pine martin just emerging from its tree trunk nest.

After dark, the forest changes hands as the nocturnal creatures of the wood emerge.

It's the domain of our lone wolf, a stealthy nocturnal hunter.

His sight and sense of smell provide a crucial sensory picture of this cluttered world.

He moves silently through the forest, listening for anything that might lead to a meal.

Soon the telltale sound of a wild boar breaks the silence.

Now he'll use his natural stealth to pursue it, moving silently through the tangled undergrowth.

The wolf can sense this is a lone boar, but it's not a good thing.

He's not a good boar.

He's not a good boar.

He's not a good boar.

He's not a good boar.

The wolf can sense this is a lone boar.

He won't have to miss out again.

So he picks up the pace and begins his relentless pursuit.

This forest is a place where the natural balance of predator and prey has been reestablished.

The natural predators are the only hunters left here now.

It may be a radioactive food chain, but they are at the top of it.

It's not just the human evacuation that keeps so many wild creatures here safe from the hunter's bullet,

but the knowledge that the flesh of these creatures is contaminated by radioactivity.

It's a bizarre but highly effective deterrent.

As dawn begins to break through the trees and drives the shadows away, the wolf loses the advantage of darkness.

He's lost his kill to his rivals, the bears.

The bears.

With these two around, nothing is safe.

Daylight is also the best time for the cat to move with their family.

Her kittens are far too vulnerable at night.

She may have hunted in the forest many times, but at heart, she's still a house cat.

And she's looking for a new home for them, but the temptation of shelter the other side of the field means crossing open ground with two kittens.

These open stretches are patrolled as always by birds of prey.

Once again, the kittens run the gauntlet.

But this time, all make it safely to the other side.

Once they're in, they realize this is something far bigger than they used to.

It's a cattle shed, part of an old collective farm.

These sheds once housed hundreds of cattle.

Now, their shelter for the growing rodent population.

And an ideal place for her to keep up the training regime for her still inexperienced hunters.

All this new activity has attracted some attention.

Their trespassing in someone else's territory.

They are all has been watching the cats from the forest.

They are all watching the cats from the forest.

They are all has been watching the cats from the moment they set foot in here.

Suddenly, the cats aren't the hunters anymore.

The kittens are in grave danger.

So once again, she gets them out of harm's way.

Back deep within the wood, the wolf is recovering from his night of hunting.

But he still needs a mate to start his own family with.

His dreams are full of expectation.

And while he sleeps, the scent of a female wolf hangs in the air and begins to stir his senses.

When he wakes, the scent is still there. It's stronger.

Now he's tracking again. Not to hunt this time, but to find a female.

Back by the edge of the lake, the cats have found somewhere else they might be able to make into a new home.

The kittens are already exploring inside.

It's a stimulating environment.

A maze of rafters for playing and honing their skills in climbing and agility.

And they seem to have reached here just in time.

Outside, a storm is brewing.

But like everything else here, this one brings more than rain.

First, the wind picks up.

These winds carry radioactive plutonium as they gather up dust from the contaminated ground.

When the rain starts to fall, it brings this radioactivity back to earth again.

And it sticks to every surface it drenches.

As the storm intensifies, thunder and lightning drown out the relentless beating rain.

But at least the cats are safe in here.

They're safe as houses.

It doesn't rain here for weeks on end.

The wood becomes dry like a tender box.

And the lightning strike can easily start an inferno.

Their new home is short-lived.

The cats have escaped with their lives, but they're still homeless.

And winter will soon be on its way.

It's another setback in her search for a home.

Somewhere she can settle her kittens before it's time for her to leave them on their own for good.

For now, she'll have to keep the family on the move.

Wow! Wow!

As they start to make their way further along the banks of the river,

they come across yet another abandoned scene from Chernobyl's catastrophic past.

The rusting remains of what appears to be an old harbor.

Many of these boats were used in the cleanup operation after the explosion,

bringing in vast quantities of sand that were poured into the flaming reactor.

After the disaster, there was simply left here for fear of spreading contamination to the outside world.

For the cats, they could provide the perfect place to spend the coming winter.

They quickly become ship's cats.

And if that means good luck, she may be able to leave her kittens here.

Warm and safe.

Her time looking after the kittens is almost over.

Soon she will have to leave them for good.

They are the latest generation of feral cats born in the ghost town of Chernobyl,

where year after year passes, with only the seasons to make changes to the landscape.

As summer finally comes to an end, the forest and its creatures start preparing for autumn,

a time and thoughts turn to hibernation.

The two bear brothers have had a good summer. They've eaten well, and they've grown in size.

The forest streams provide the perfect place for them to bathe.

Bears will sit like this for hours, but here, they stir up their radioactive sediment,

and it sticks to their fur.

And during the winter hibernation, they're exposed to more radiation as they move on the ground.

As they excavate the earth to build their dens, they uncover the shallower soils,

where most of the radioactivity is still stored.

Living here means there's really no end to the legacy of the disaster,

and won't be for centuries to come.

It's a strange place to find such peaceful and natural balance,

a balance that now includes the radiation itself.

It migrates through water and wind, and the levels of contamination in animals have varied over the years.

While some radiation decays, it can also make its way through the food chain.

Down by the banks of the river, the old boat is still home to the growing kittens.

They're exploring more than ever, but as they venture out alone, they still seem to be getting themselves into more trouble.

After escaping the clutches of the bears back in the old house, they're giving the two brothers another chance to catch them.

They've just strayed into bear country, and this time, there's nowhere to run and hide.

The bears are still looking for anything they can eat to store up fuel for the winter.

Even a small cat would provide a valuable bit of protein.

Yet again, the kittens make the wise decision to gain height.

The nine lives are fast running out.

It's another valuable lesson learned.

As winter sets in and the temperature drops, the zone is transformed by a pure white blanket of snow.

In contrast to the city, choked with vegetation, the forest of this exclusion zone are a spectacular and natural wilderness.

But it's hard to accept that this is still a post-nuclear landscape.

With the spontaneous resurrection of animal and plant life here, environmentalists have remained astonished by nature's ability to create something positive out of such a terrible disaster.

But this natural balance might only be part of the story.

The long-term effects of living somewhere so radioactive are a matter of debate.

There's still no agreement as to what diseases other than cancer exposure might cause.

And there are fewer cases than expected.

It appears the natural lifespans of animals here are too short to develop tumors.

But the future of their genetic health will remain controversial for many years to come.

Until then, we have the stories of creatures that are thriving here, like the cat family.

The bows is now deep in snow, and the footprints leading away into the distance belong to the mother.

She travels for some time on her own, moving faster now without her kittens.

The journey has taken her far from the village, and all the way to the border of the Forbidden Zone.

As she crosses from the radioactive world that has always been her home, she leaves Chernobyl to encounter a new and alien world.

The world inhabited by people.

Back deep inside the zone, there's a change of ownership at the old house.

The wolf has taken over this territory.

Independent at last.

He is now in control of the area the cats once held.

But the lone wolf is not alone anymore.

He's settled down with his mate.

And it's here they'll bring a new generation of Chernobyl wolf cubs into the world.

Meanwhile, the cat has tracked further from her safety zone.

With the worst of the winter still to come, she will need to find shelter.

Somewhere safe from the elements, and where she can still hunt.

Suddenly there's an unfamiliar noise, and unnerving and bewildering sight.

The world she's entered is full of dangers she would never have faced in her radioactive sanctuary.

After struggling through deep snow for a mile after a mile, she finally sees the shape of something familiar.

The house looks very like the one she's left behind.

But there are signs that this one may not be empty.

She may not know it yet, but this is going to be her new home.

And unlike the one where she was born, this time the owner will come home.

She's about to become a regular house cat.

But for a while she sits and waits, wary of going inside.

Herz is a story that tells us how nature can triumph, even when man has done his best to destroy it.

It's a story that could have happened anywhere.