November 13, 2025 | 03:55 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Several dogs with bright blue fur have recently been spotted wandering in the restricted area of Chernobyl in northern Ukraine, the location of the world's most famous nuclear disaster. Researchers have confirmed that the color change is not caused by genetic mutations resulting from radiation exposure.
Researchers from the "Dogs of Chernobyl" program say that the photos of the blue dogs taken in Chernobyl on October 6, 2025, are indeed genuine. At least three dogs with similar coloring have been documented in the area. The team failed to capture the animals, but eventually found that the change in fur color was caused by exposure to a substance leaking from a nearby portable toilet.
"They appear to have been rolling in a substance that had accumulated on their fur. We are suspecting that this substance was from an old portable toilet that was in the same location as the dogs; however, we were unable to positively confirm our suspicions," said Medical Director of Veterinary Medicine for the Dogs of Chernobyl program Jennifer Betz, as quoted from a review by IFLScience on October 28, 2025.
Although striking, the substance is believed not to be harmful to the animals' health. "I would suspect, as long as they don’t lick the majority of the substance off of their fur, it would be mostly harmless," Betz said.
The phenomenon of dogs with unusual colors is not new to the former Soviet Union region. In 2021, residents of Dzerzhinsk, Russia, also found a pack of bright blue dogs near an abandoned chemical factory. These animals were found rolling in copper sulfate, a light blue chemical used in manufacturing.
Betz and her team are in Chernobyl as part of the Dogs of Chernobyl project run by the non-profit organization Clean Futures Fund. Since 2017, over 1,000 cats and dogs have been sterilized there. These pets were abandoned by their owners during the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.
She also refuted allegations that the blue color came from temporary markers placed on the animals by the team. "During our sterilization campaign, we apply a temporary crayon marker on the top of their head in the color green, red, blue or purple, to identify which dogs we have recently performed surgery on," Betz explained.
The marker color normally fades within two or three days. The coloring is only applied to the animals' heads, so it is very different from the color on the dogs' fur in Chernobyl recently.
In addition to dogs, several other wild species are known to be breeding in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, including wild boar, red fox, songbirds, and raccoon dogs. Research even shows that wolves in the area have protective mutations that increase their resistance to cancer.
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